Do I Owe You Something?: A Memoir of the Literary Life [Hardcover]

Michael Mewshaw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

As a graduate student, Michael Mewshaw overheard his girlfriend propositioned by James Dickey, served as chauffeur and drinking companion to William Styron, and under George Garrett's direction impersonated a Playboy fiction editor on television. So he began a remarkable literary life in which Mewshaw grants us the sizable pleasure of passing time with some of the twentieth century's finest and most interesting writers.

Mewshaw describes poignant episodes and painful lessons, including his complex relationship with Robert Penn Warren and Eleanor Clark. But his memoir is also filled with humorous events: mistaking Carlos Fuentes for James Jones's handyman, being tricked into babysitting Anthony Burgess's precocious son, and receiving publishing advice from safari-garbed pulp novelist Harold Robbins. Mewshaw recounts visits with Paul Bowles in Tangier, brief collisions with the likes of Mary McCarthy and William Gaddis, and enduring friendships with Graham Greene, Pat Conroy, and Gore Vidal.

Vivid and original, this book shimmers with Mewshaw's talent as a reporter and travel writer and benefits from a novelist's distinctive voice and flawless instinct for what makes a situation sad or important, arresting or just plain funny. Do I Owe You Something? Will appeal to anyone who has ever yearned to write or to meet the men and women who do.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Here's an author's nightmare: in 1977, as a young novelist, Mewshaw published an interview with Graham Greene. Mewshaw had a passing acquaintance with Greene and based the highly flattering piece on past conversation and the interview. After reading the piece, Greene fired off a letter expressing his "real horror," noting no other "journalist has done worse for me than you" before detailing every error he found. Mewshaw prints their correspondence as they slug it out, and the result is energizing and amusing. Throughout this literary memoir, Mewshaw recounts his interactions with literati, portraying himself-inadvertently at times-as all too human in his interactions with the famous. (Mewshaw himself, while much younger when he had these interactions, is the author of nine novels and five nonfiction books.) His anecdotes are humorous-e.g., after interviewing James Jones, he reminded the notoriously blunt novelist he hadn't "heard you say `fuck' a single time"-and he deftly conveys his subjects with humanity and colorful, exaggerated detail. Mewshaw intersperses his literary career with his friendships with better known writers. His encounter with Anthony Burgess comes about because of Mewshaw's kind words about Burgess's novel Walking Slow, but ends with the humbling experience of an indulgent, overextended Burgess asking, "Do I owe you something? A letter? A recommendation? Money?" Written in a chatty, vibrant style, Mewshaw's memoir is not the stuff of great literature, but a good read with great gossip about himself and others.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Michael Mewshaw is the author of five previous books of nonfiction-among them, Short Circuit: Six Months on the Men's Professional Tennis Tour-and nine novels, including the just-released Shelter from the Storm. He has published hundreds of articles and reviews in the New York Times, Washington Post, London Observer, and other newspapers and magazines. He lives with his wife, Linda, in Key West and London.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr; First Edition edition (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080712852X
• ISBN-13: 978-0807128527
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,488,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gossip galore from a true-crime master, August 7, 2004

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Do I Owe You Something?: A Memoir of the Literary Life (Hardcover)

Though we know him now mostly from his writing about tennis and true crime, once upon a time Michael ("Mike") Mewshaw had loftier ambitions and moved with the famous novelists of his day (the 1970s is the period treated in this book), aided and abetted by his lovely wife, Linda, whom William Styron called, "Slim." You will love reading Mewshaw's accounts of his brushes with fame, as he tries to get this one to write a blurb for his book, the other one to write him a reference letter. He is endearing, always saying and doing the exact wrong thing, and managing to alienate the shallow people he wants to impress. His account of meeting Eleanor Clark and her rudeness to him is very well written. She is a monster in human form, even down to having a face with a tragic flaw in it which made her look as though she were sneering all the time. Eventually her personality came to match her face (according to this book, there may be another side to the story). And Mewshaw's account of the Southern writer Peter Taylor is another prize. What a terrible person!

When he gets to Rome, he tries repeatedly to impress the once-famous novelist Anthony Burgess, who wrote A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Instead he has a hilarious eight-hour encounter with Burgess' wife, an excitable and grasping Italian, and their little boy of 7, a wild child with nothing but id. In this context we come to admire Harold Robbins, the lowbrow best-seller. He may not have been esteemed to critics, but at least he was generous to Mike and Linda!

5.0 out of 5 stars The Only Person.............., August 26, 2011

By 

Tom - See all my reviews

This review is from: Do I Owe You Something?: A Memoir of the Literary Life (Hardcover)

Mike and I went to DeMatha High School together (he was one year behind me). I can honestly say that he is the ONLY person I have ever known that said in high school what he wanted to be (a writer) and went on to pursue that career religiously. I have read most of his books and he is an excellent writer. Read Mike's books; I'm sure you will enjoy them. Mike is an excellent writer...way to go, Mike!!!