Letter to the President of the American Biographical Institute, Inc.
Dear President,
I was pleased to receive your letter informing me that I had been nominated by the Governing Board of Editors as WOMAN OF THE YEAR—2006. But at the same time I was puzzled. You say that this award is given to women who have set a “noble” example for their peers, and that your desire is, as you put it, to “uplift” their accomplishments. You then say that in researching my qualifications, you were assisted by a Board of Advisors consisting of 10,000 “influential” people living in seventy-five countries. Yet even after this extensive research, you have made a basic factual mistake and addressed your letter, not to Lydia Davis, which is my name, but to Lydia Danj.
Of course, it may be that you do not have my name wrong but that you are awarding your honor to an actual Lydia Danj. But either mistake would suggest a lack of care on your part. Should I take this to mean that there was no great care taken over the research upon which the award is based, despite the involvement of 10,000 people? This would suggest that I should not place great importance on the honor itself. Furthermore, you invite me to send for tangible proof of this nomination in the form of what you call a “decree,” presented by the American Biographical Institute Board of International Research, measuring 11 × 14 inches, limited and signed. For a plain decree you ask me to pay $195, while a laminated decree will cost me $295.
Again, I am puzzled. I have received awards before, but I was not asked to pay anything for them. The fact that you have mistaken my name and that you are also asking me to pay for my award suggests to me that you are not truly honoring me but rather want me to believe I am being honored so that I will send you either $195 or $295. But now I am further puzzled.
I would assume that any woman who is truly accomplished in the world, whose accomplishments “to date,” as you say, are outstanding and deserve what you call top honors, would be intelligent enough not to be misled by this letter from you. And yet your list must consist of women who have accomplished something, because a woman who had accomplished nothing at all would surely not believe that her accomplishments deserved a “Woman of the Year” award.
Could it be, then, that what your research produces is a list of women who have accomplished enough so that they may believe they do indeed deserve a “Woman of the Year” award and yet are not intelligent or worldly enough to see that for you this is a business and there is no real honor involved? Or are they women who have accomplished something they believe is deserving of honor and are intelligent enough to know, deep down, that you are in this only for profit, yet, at the same time, are willing to part with $195 or $295 to receive this decree, either plain or laminated, perhaps not admitting to themselves that it means nothing?
If your research has identified me as a member of one of these two groups of women—either easily deceived concerning communications from organizations like yours or willing to deceive themselves, which I suppose is worse—then I am sorry and I must wonder what it suggests about me. But on the other hand, since I feel I really do not belong to either of these two groups, perhaps this is simply more evidence that your research has not been good and you were mistaken to include me, whether as Lydia Davis or as Lydia Danj, on your list. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
Yours sincerely.
Nancy Brown Will Be in Town
Nancy Brown will be in town. She will be in town to sell her things. Nancy Brown is moving far away. She would like to sell her queen mattress.
Do we want her queen mattress? Do we want her ottoman? Do we want her bath items?
It is time to say goodbye to Nancy Brown.
We have enjoyed her friendship. We have enjoyed her tennis lessons.
Ph.D.
All these years I thought I had a Ph.D.
But I do not have a Ph.D.
Notes and Acknowledgments
The stories in this collection first appeared in the following publications, sometimes in slightly different form:
32 Poems: “Men”
Bodega: “Idea for a Sign”
Bomb: “A Woman, Thirty”
Cambridge Literary Review: “Revise: 1,” “Revise: 2”
Conjunctions: “Reversible Story”
dOCUMENTA (13) Notebooks series: “Two Former Students”
Electric Literature: “The Cows”
Fence: “At the Bank,” “At the Bank: 2,” “The Churchyard,” “The Gold Digger of Goldfields,” “In the Train Station,” “The Moon”
Five Dials (U.K.): “Notes During Long Phone Conversation with Mother,” “On the Train,” “A Story of Stolen Salamis,” “A Story Told to Me by a Friend,” “Nancy Brown Will Be in Town”
Five Points: “A Note from the Paperboy,” “Her Birthday”
Gerry Mulligan: “Left Luggage”
gesture zine: “The Problem of the Vacuum Cleaner,” “The Old Vacuum Cleaner Keeps Dying on Her”
Granta: “The Dreadful Mucamas”
Harlequin: “Wrong Thank-You in Theater”
Harper’s: “How I Read as Quickly as Possible Through My Back Issues of the TLS,” “The Two Davises and the Rug”
Hodos: “Old Woman, Old Fish”
Little Star: “Handel,” “Housekeeping Observation,” “Judgment,” “Sitting with My Little Friend,” “The Sky Above Los Angeles”
Mississippi Review: “A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates,” “Her Geography: Alabama,” “Her Geography: Illinois,” “I’m Pretty Comfortable, But I Could Be a Little More Comfortable,” “The Washerwomen”
MLS: “Contingency (vs. Necessity) 2: On Vacation,” “Hello Dear,” “I Ask Mary About Her Friend, the Depressive, and His Vacation,” “Letter to the President of the American Biographical Institute, Inc.,” “Molly, Female Cat: History/Findings”
New American Writing: “The Old Soldier,” “Staying at the Pharmacist’s,” “Flaubert and Point of View”
NOON: “Bloomington,” “The Cornmeal,” “Dinner,” “The Dog Hair,” “How I Know What I Like (Six Versions),” “The Language of the Telephone Company,” “Learning Medieval History,” “Master,” “My Footsteps,” “Not Interested,” “The Party,” “Ph.D.,” “The Song,” “Their Poor Dog,” “Writing”
Pear Noir!: “The Bad Novel,” “Waiting for Takeoff,” “The Woman Next to Me on the Airplane”
PEN America: “The Landing”
Plume: “Brief Incident in Short a, Long a, and Schwa,” “Contingency (vs. Necessity),” “My Friend’s Creation,” “?d?n von Horváth Out Walking”
Salt Hill: “Circular Story,” “Grade Two Assignment,” “Short Conversation (in Airport Departure Lounge)”
Satori: “The Force of the Subliminal”
Sous Rature: “The Husband-Seekers,” “The Low Sun,” “Two Sligo Lads”
Story Quarterly: “The Woman in Red”
The Coffin Factory: “Negative Emotions,” “The Rooster”
The Iowa Review: “The Child,” “The Dog,” “The Grandmother”
The Literary Review: “Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer,” “Letter to a Hotel Manager,” “Letter to a Peppermint Candy Company”
The Los Angeles Review: “The Sentence and the Young Man”
The New York Times: “The Seals” (original title “Everyone Was Invited”)
The Paris Review: “The Cook’s Lesson,” “After You Left,” “The Visit to the Dentist,” “Pouchet’s Wife,” “The Funeral,” “The Coachman and the Worm,” “The Execution,” “The Chairs,” “The Exhibition,” “My School Friend,” “Local Obits,” “The Language of Things in the House,” “If at the Wedding (at the Zoo),” “The Results of One Statistical Study,” “My Childhood Friend”
The Threepenny Review: “The Letter to the Foundation”
The World: “My Sister and the Queen of England”
Tim: “Two Characters in a Paragraph,” “Two Undertakers”
Tin House: “Eating Fish Alone,” “In the Gallery,” “The Piano,” “The Piano Lesson,” “The Schoolchildren in the Large Building,” “Swimming in Egypt”
Tolling Elves: “Family Shopping”
Upstreet: “An Awkward Situation”
Wave Composition: “Industry”
Western Humanities Review: “Awake in the Night,” “The Bodyguard,” “Can’t and Won’t,” “The Last of the Mohicans”
“If at the Wedding (at the Zoo)” is dedicated to Joanna Sondheim and Eugene Lim.
“A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates” is dedicated to Rainer Goetz.
“The Landing” also appeared in The Daily Telegraph (U.K.).
“The Seals” also appeared, in a much expanded version, in The Paris Review.
“The Cows” was also published as a chapbook by Sarabande Press (2011), with photographs by Theo Cote, Stephen Davis, and Lydia Davis.
“Eating Fish Alone” was also published by Madras Press (2013) in a chapbook in the “Stuffed Animals” series along with Harry Mathews’s “Country Cooking from Central France.”
The following “dream pieces” also appeared in Proust, Blanchot, and the Woman in Red (Cahier #5, Sylph Editions, Paris): “The Churchyard,” “The Dog,” “The Grandmother,” “In the Gallery,” “In the Train Station,” “The Moon,” “The Piano,” “The Piano Lesson,” “The Schoolchildren in the Large Building,” “Swimming in Egypt,” “The Woman in Red.”
The following stories also appeared in the Harper’s Magazine “Readings” section: “The Cornmeal,” “Dinner,” “The Dog Hair,” “The Language of the Telephone Company,” “The Song,” “The Party,” “Not Interested.”
The following “Flaubert stories” also appeared in the Harper’s Magazine “Readings” section: “Pouchet’s Wife,” “The Chairs,” “The Coachman and the Worm,” “The Visit to the Dentist,” “The Cook’s Lesson.”
The following stories were reprinted in anthologies:
“Men” in The Best American Poetry 2008 (ed. Wright) and Old Flame: From the First 10 Years of 32 Poems Magazine.
“Brief Incident in Short a, Long a, and Schwa” and “?d?n von Horváth Out Walking” in Plume Anthology.
“My Sister and the Queen of England” in The Gertrude Stein Anthology.
“Eating Fish Alone” in Food and Booze: A Tin House Literary Feast.
Note about the “dream pieces”: Certain pieces which I am calling “dreams” were composed from actual night dreams and dreamlike waking experiences of my own; and the dreams, waking experiences, and letters of family and friends. I would like to thank individuals for the use of their dreams or waking experiences, as follows:
John Arlidge for “Swimming in Egypt”; Christine Berl for “The Piano Lesson”; Rachel Careau for “In the Gallery”; Tom and Nancy Clement, and Nancy’s grandmother Ernestine, for “The Grandmother”; Claudia Flanders for “The Piano”; Rachel Hadas for “At the Bank” and “At the Bank: 2”; Paula Heisen for “The Sky Above Los Angeles”; and Edie Jarolim for “Ph.D.” (which began as a “dream” and became shorter). The rest are my own.
Note about the “stories from Flaubert” and the “rant from Flaubert”: The thirteen “stories from Flaubert” and the one “rant from Flaubert” were formed from material found in letters written by Gustave Flaubert, most of them to his friend and lover Louise Colet, during the period in which he was working on Madame Bovary. This material, contained in Correspondance Volume II (ed. Jean Bruneau; Editions Gallimard, 1980) and dating from 1853–54, was excerpted, translated from the French, and then slightly rewritten. My aim was to leave Flaubert’s language and content as little changed as possible, only shaping the excerpt enough to create a balanced story, though I took whatever liberties I thought were necessary (in one case, for instance, combining material from two letters so that two related stories were turned into one; in another case, adding some factual material to a story to give more background to a character).