Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)

Subject: BS: Grace Paley, My Teacher
From: lisa null
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 05:27 PM

Grace Paley died and I am devastated. She was my mentor when I returned to college in midlife. She was the best teacher I ever had and could bind together those gaping chasms between mother and writer, doer and thinker, nature and culture, personal and professional. She was free with her hands and hugged all her students: young and old, male and female. How such a small, feisty woman could be so engulfing and soft is another of the contradictions she reconciled.

She'd poke her finger at a passage in each paper I submitted, suggesting I think about changing one word. I was startled, maybe even insulted at first. Then I'd do what she said until the whole piece snapped into focus around a one-word revision.

Grace said writing is about looking under a rock to see what's there. She'd tell us to take one day of our time just for ourselves. "Wake up, wash your hair, move through your room until words speak for themselves. You have to give them space." Her greatest love in writing was editing, a process that she always separated from creating the first draft. "What you have," she said, "is a big, rough half-hewn stone. Sand it, polish it, smooth it. Let the sculpture come out."

It might have been fun to tell her I went on to become a star writer, but I didn't. It wouldn't have been that big a deal to her. "So how's your son?" she would have asked.

What mattered to Grace was what you did with whatever truth you found under the rock.

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 05:43 PM

She was certainly a legend. You were lucky to have known her, Lisa. Here's the obituary from the Atlanta Journal

Grace Paley, 84, short story writer, activist
Published on: 08/24/07

Grace Paley, the celebrated writer and social activist whose short stories explored in precise, pungent and tragicomic style the struggles of ordinary women muddling through everyday lives, died on Wednesday at her home in Thetford Hill, Vt. She was 84 and also had an apartment in Manhattan.

Paley had been ill with breast cancer for some time, her literary agent, Elaine Markson, said Thursday.

Paley's output was modest, about four dozen stories in three volumes: "The Little Disturbances of Man" (Doubleday, 1959); "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974); and "Later the Same Day" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985). But she attracted a devoted following and was widely praised by critics for her pitch-perfect dialogue, which managed at once to be surgically spare and almost unimaginably rich.

Her "Collected Stories," published by Farrar, Straus in 1994, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. (The collection was reissued by Farrar, Straus this year.) From 1986 to 1988, Paley was New York's first official state author; she was also a past poet laureate of Vermont.

Paley was among the earliest American writers to explore the lives of women — mostly Jewish, mostly New Yorkers — in all their dailiness. She often focused on single mothers, whose days were a mix of sexual yearning and pulverizing fatigue. In a sense, her work was about what happened to the women that Roth and Bellow and Malamud's men had loved and left behind.

To read Paley's fiction is to be awash in the shouts and murmurs of secular Yiddishkeit, with its wild joy and twilight melancholy. For her, cadence and character went hand in hand: her stories are marked by their minute attention to language, with its tonal rise and fall, hairpin rhetorical reversals and capacity for delicious hyperbolic understatement. Her stories, many of which are written in the first person and seem to start in mid-conversation, beg be read aloud.

Some critics found Paley's stories short on plot, and much of what happens is that nothing much happens. Affairs begin, babies are born, affairs end. But that was the point. In Paley's best stories, the language is so immediate, the characters so authentic, that the text is propelled by an innate urgency — the kind that makes readers ask, "And then what happened?"

Open Paley's first collection, "The Little Disturbances of Man," to the first story, "Goodbye and Good Luck":

"I was popular in certain circles,says Aunt Rose. I wasn't no thinner then, only more stationary in the flesh. In time to come, Lillie, don't be surprised — change is a fact of God. From this no one is excused. Only a person like your mama stands on one foot, she don't notice how big her behind is getting and sings in the canary's ear for thirty years. Who's listening? Papa's in the shop. You and Seymour, thinking about yourself. So she waits in a spotless kitchen for a kind word and thinks — poor Rosie.

"Poor Rosie! If there was more life in my little sister, she would know my heart is a regular college of feelings and there is such information between my corset and me that her whole married life is a kindergarten."

Hooked.

For Paley's immigrant Jews, the push and pull of assimilation is everywhere. Parents live in the East Bronx or Coney Island; their children flee to Greenwich Village. A family agonizes over its daughter's role in her school's Christmas pageant.

Later stories are darker. A girl is raped; children die of drug overdoses. Threading through the books are familiar characters, in particular Faith Darwin, the subject of many stories, grown older and world-wearier.

Though Paley's work also rings with Irish and Italian and black voices, it was for the language of her childhood, a heady blend of Yiddish, Russian and English, that she was best known. Reviewers sometimes called her prose postmodern, but all of it — even her death-defying, almost surreal turns of logic — was already present in Yiddish oral tradition. Consider:

A man meets a friend on the street.

"Nu, how's by you?" the friend asks.

"Ach," the man replies. "My wife left me; the children don't call; business is bad. With life so terrible, it's better never to have been born."

"Yes," his friend says. "But how many are so lucky? Not one in ten thousand."

Grace Goodside was born in the Bronx on Dec. 11, 1922. (The family changed its name from Gutseit on coming to the United States.) Her parents, Isaac and the former Manya Ridnyik, were Ukrainian Jewish Socialists who had been exiled by Czar Nicholas II: Isaac to Siberia, Manya to Germany. In 1906, they were able to leave for New York, where Isaac became a doctor. They had two children, and, approaching middle age, a third, Grace.

Grace's childhood was noisy and warm, and always there was glorious argument. The Communists hollered at the Socialists, the Socialists hollered at the Zionists, and everybody hollered at the anarchists.

Grace spent a year at Hunter College before marrying Jess Paley, a film cameraman, at 19; the marriage later ended in divorce. Hoping to be a poet (she studied briefly with Auden at the New School), she wrote only verse until she was in her 30s. But little by little the narrative speech of the old neighborhood — here, that of young Shirley Abramowitz in Paley's story "The Loudest Voice" — began to assert itself:

"There is a certain place where dumb-waiters boom, doors slam, dishes crash; every window is a mother's mouth bidding the street shut up, go skate somewhere else, come home. My voice is the loudest.

"There, my own mother is still as full of breathing as me and the grocer stands up to speak to her. 'Mrs. Abramowitz,' he says, 'people should not be afraid of their children.'

"'Ah, Mr. Bialik,' my mother replies, 'if you say to her or her father "Ssh," they say, "In the grave it will be quiet.'""

A self-described "somewhat combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist," Paley was an advocate of liberal causes. During the Vietnam War she was jailed several times for protests; in later years she lobbied for women's rights, against nuclear proliferation and, most recently, against the war in Iraq. For decades she was a familiar presence on lower Sixth Avenue, near her Greenwich Village home, smiling broadly, leaflets in hand.

Paley, who taught for many years at Sarah Lawrence and the City College of New York, was also a past vice president of the PEN American Center.

Some critics have called Paley's work uneven, but what they really seemed to mean is that it was too even: similar people in similar situations. But the stories that worked — and most did — were so satisfying that the lesser ones scarcely mattered. At her best, Paley collapsed entire worlds into a few perfect paragraphs, as in the opening of "Wants," from "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute":

"I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library.

"Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.

"He said, What? What life? No life of mine.

"I said, OK I don't argue when there's real disagreement. I got up and went into the library to see how much I owed them.

"The librarian said $32 even and you've owed it for eighteen years. I didn't deny anything. Because I don't understand how time passes. I have had those books. I have often thought of them. The library is only two blocks away.

"My ex-husband followed me to the Books Returned desk. He interrupted the librarian, who had more to tell. In many ways, he said, as I look back, I attribute the dissolution of our marriage to the fact that you never invited the Bertrams to dinner.

"That's possible, I said. But really, if you remember: first, my father was sick that Friday, then the children were born, then I had those Tuesday-night meetings, then the war began."

Paley is survived by her second husband, Robert Nichols, whom she married in 1972. (They collaborated on "Here and Somewhere Else," which collects poems and stories by each of them, published this year by The Feminist Press.) She is also survived by two children from her first marriage, Nora Paley of East Thetford; and Danny, of Brooklyn; and three grandchildren.

Her other books include a collection of essays, "Just As I Thought" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998), and several volumes of poetry, among them "Leaning Forward" (Granite Press, 1985) and "New and Collected Poems" (Tilbury Press, 1991). A film, "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute," based on three stories and adapted by John Sayles and Susan Rice, was released in 1983.

In an interview with The New York Times in 1978, Paley described the grass-roots sensibility that informed her work.

"I'm not writing a history of famous people," she said. "I am interested in a history of everyday life."

Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/08/24/obitpaley_0824.html

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 05:53 PM

How sad that many of us will only hear about this life after it has ended. If only we had known of her when she was still alive.

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: lisa null
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 07:52 PM

Grace Paley's books are very much out there and a collection of all her short stories appeared just htis year. I have so enjoyed getting responses to my posting here on Mudcat because Grace, in so many ways, worked out in stories some of the feelings we have about our music. I especially liked it that she cared aboutthe history of ordinary people!

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: Big Mick
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 09:08 PM

I can't imagine a better tribute than the one you wrote, my friend Lisa. We should all hope that one person thought so much of us as to share who we really were with others.

Congratulations on being a wonderful human being, and thank you for telling us of a kindred spirit. God be good to her.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 09:47 AM

Lisa-

She will live on with you and the other students, friends and readers who had the chance to experience her in life and in her work.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 11:10 AM

Sorry. I missed this thread earlier........

I had a friend who insisted she was the greatest and after my first exposure I too was hooked. Like other people, I wished for more but the quality of her work made up for it. Re-reading her is worthwhile as a learning experience. From the article Joe posted:

"But she attracted a devoted following and was widely praised by critics for her pitch-perfect dialogue, which managed at once to be surgically spare and almost unimaginably rich."

Says it all. Goodbye Grace and thanks.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: lisa null
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 11:53 AM

To Joe Offer, Topsie, Big Mick, Charley Noble, catspaw49

Thanks so mycgh for your support, your own thoughts, and for helping to turn what could be a very lonely experience into a virtual Irish Wake. As a matter of fact, I feel so revived I'm going to sing FInnegan's Wake! Grace would have liked that.

All Join In....

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 12:26 PM

"Lots of fun at Finnegan's wake!"

It's a good song to sing, Lisa!

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 02:55 PM

Thanks, Lisa, for sharing with us. I was sad when I heard the news on NPR and thought of all she did for women and ordinary people. Her writings were and are important and I, for one, am grateful she graced (no pun intended) us with her talent and heart.

All the best,

kat

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: open mike
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 02:09 PM

this was sent to me..

Here (by Grace Paley)
      
    Here I am in the garden laughing
    an old woman with heavy breasts
    and a nicely mapped face

    how did this happen
    well that's who I wanted to be

    at last a woman
    in the old style sitting
    stout thighs apart under
    a big skirt grandchild sliding
    on off my lap a pleasant
    summer perspiration

    that's my old man across the yard
    he's talking to the meter reader
    he's telling him the world's sad story
    how electricity is oil or uranium
    and so forth I tell my grandson
    run over to your grandpa ask him
    to sit beside me for a minute I
    am suddenly exhausted by my desire
    to kiss his sweet explaining lips.

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:06 PM

Any relation to Tom Paley (and Ben Paley who was in good form at Broadstairs last week)?

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:53 PM

May the poignant sting of your loss go to a greater purpose.
And kudos for your accomplishments thus far.

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: open mike
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 03:33 AM

I wondered about the Paley relationship, too. (Tom, Ben)
here is an excerpt from the above article:
"Grace spent a year at Hunter College before
marrying Jess Paley, a film cameraman, at 19..."
i cannot find any info about Jess/Tom/Ben.

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: Suffet
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 03:04 PM

Greetings:

Grace was a mentor of mine as well, but not in college. Rather, it was during the two years I spent as a full time activist in the anti-war movement, 1967-1969, and beyond into the early 1970s. Actually, Grace was more of a mother figure than a mentor, and her good friend Karl Bissinger was like a father. At the time I was active in the draft resistance movement, and although I had been granted an exemption as a conscientious, I returned my draft card to the Selective Service System and informed them that I would no longer cooperate. There were literally hundreds, even thousands, more like me, and people like Grace and Karl kept us going. They fed us, they housed us, they found us part-time jobs, they even posted bail money when necessary. But their activism didn't stop with mere moral and finacial support. Grace, Karl, and many others put their bodies on the front lines, and were clubbed, tear gassed, and arrest along with us younger folks. In fact, I remember being arrested together with Grace Paley at least twice. Both times were in New York City, once outside the Whitehall Street Army Induction Center in 1967 and once outside the Selective Service offices on Varrick Street in 1970.

Lisa, I just saw youand Charlie at Jean's house yesterday. I'm just sorry I didn't read this thread beforehand. I would have loved to talk with you about Grace. Maybe I'll see you at the NY Pinewoods Fall Weekend in October. I haven't yet decided whether or not I'm going.

--- Steve Suffet

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 06:24 PM

This obituary was in today's Sacramento Bee, and I thought it was particularly worth reading.
-Joe-

---

Paul Greenberg: Goodbye and good luck

By Paul Greenberg -
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Grace Paley, the celebrated writer and social activist whose short stories explored in precise, pungent and tragicomic style the struggles of ordinary women muddling through everyday lives, died Wednesday at her home in Thetford Hill, Vt. She was 84 and also had an apartment in Manhattan . ...

-- Obituary Page, New York Times

What was she like? What can I tell you? She was a nice person. Refined but no pushover. Ladylike, but sharp on crooks. A writer. Also a "social activist," I see by the Times. Social activist, shmocial activist. A Mother Teresa she wasn't, not even a Dorothy Day. She didn't have enough inner doubt to be a saint.

Believe me, if she hadn't been such a Social Activist, she would have been a better writer in her old age. Listen to what I'm telling you: There's realism, then there's socialist realism. I'm no writer, but that much I know.

Paley a social activist? She was more a street-cornernik. You know, the kind of nice lady who hands out pamphlets on Sixth Avenue down in the Village when she isn't teaching classes at Sarah Lawrence.

Her causes? Women's lib, nuclear disarmament, down with the capitalists, whatever you got. She kept up with the times.

She had lots of irons in the fire, that lady. Also, I see by the paper, a home in Vermont and an apartment in Manhattan. That's America for you -- a rotten warmongering racist sexist society where they make you keep up two houses. It's tough to be a social activist.

So what were her politics? Not easy to describe. She was a kind of combative pacifist, a cooperative anarchist. She'd tell you so herself. She had a sense of humor. Very rare among social activists, believe me. To me, she was just your typical Henry Wallace Progressive. It was like 1948 all the time with her. A nice person, you understand, not angry, and you couldn't ask for a better friend. A good mother and ex-wife. She had a husband or two, children, the whole catastrophe. She knew what life was, let me tell you.

Could she tell a story. And you know what her secret was? She wasn't so much a storyteller as a story hearer. She was a first-class listener. That was the secret of her success.

No, she didn't start out as a writer. She was going to be a poet.

With a capital P yet. Who wasn't going to be a poet back then, when we were all at Hunter? Or maybe at the New School. And she stayed a poet, but not one you might care to read. Poets we got. More storytellers we could use.

So, to make a long story shorter, one day she gets sick -- it must have been in the 1950s -- but not so sick she can't type when the kids are at school and out of her hair, and she sits down to write a story, "Goodbye and Good Luck."

And she was off. Like a racehorse.

Only you'll never get the real flavor of her words if you just read it. You got to read it out loud. And hear it.

You listening to me? What kind of writer was she? She was a Yiddish writer only in English.

What an ear for hearing she had! You want to know what kind of writer she was? Go and read. Aloud. Then you'll understand.

Me? I'm going to have myself a nice cup of tea and maybe a blintz with a gentleman admirer at the dairy restaurant on Delancey, the one that isn't Ratner's. More tea, believe me, I don't need. I'm already a samovar. But a nice gentleman who isn't fresh, and knows how to treat a lady, not like your generation, that would be nice.

So, please, you should excuse me. I don't want to keep him waiting too long, just long enough, if you know what I mean.

Enough already with Grace Paley, may she rest in peace. Life goes on. As for you, Mister Big-Shot Newspaperman, you could learn a lot from her when it comes to listening. Goodbye and good luck.

Subject: RE: Obit: Grace Paley (1922-August 22, 2007)
From: Susan A-R
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 09:09 PM

Lisa, I can't believe I missed this. Grace has been a pretty wonderful part of political life here in Vermont as well. I did not know her well, but will miss her poetry and her fierce, blunt, humorous take on politics and life.