Friday, October 05, 2007

Cornell Woolrich by Richard Moore

Richard Moore posted this on RARA-Avis the other night. It's a fine fine piece.

-----

A few days ago in discussing Cornell Woolrich's WALZ INTO DARKNESS,
I mentioned it was published as a Story Press book and he had
published some short stories in the fabled Story, a low pay, high
prestige magazine that published early Cheever, Salinger, Mailer and
many other literary greats. I also mentioned reading many years ago
a memoir by one of the editors of Story that discussed Woolrich's
visits to the magazine's editorial offices.

Today nestled in a box of Simenon novels I found THE STORY OF STORY
MAGAZINE by Martha Foley, who with her husband Whit Burnett founded
the magazine. Her description of Woolrich is striking and worth
transcribing for the list:

"Usually writers bringing manuscripts to the office asked for me,
either because they thought Whit, being a man, was too important, or
because people with a problem often find it easier to talk to a
woman than to a man. Cornell Woolrich was one. I had never heard
of him. A thin, shaking, hungry-looking man, he asked me, almost
imploringly, 'if I send you a story, will you please read it?'

"'Of course,' I told him. 'That's why I'm an editor. To read
manuscripts.'

"Reassured, he told me about himself. In 1927, when he was twenty-
four years old, he had won first prize--$10,000--in a short story
contest held by College Humor, then a large-circulation magazine.
(Writing as I am now about Cornell makes me wish, as I have
countless times, that I had kept a journal!) As far as I can
remember, he said that there was a long hiatus in his writing after
winning the prize, and that when he resumed writing his work was
rejected. I remember his telling me of how his father had left his
mother, and of how, as a boy, he had spent years with her roaming
around the country in search of his father. I have never forgotten
his leaning forward to me and saying earnestly, 'A search for a
father is a search for God.'

"The story I promised to read, which Cornell sent me, was the
wonderful "Goodbye New York," a skin-prickling tale of two people
who have committed a crime; desparate to leave the big city, their
stratagems to avoid detection, their near-captures and their terror,
are told in writing far superior to that of the usual thriller. The
praise given the story when it appeared provided Cornell with the
renewed impetus he craved. He went on to achieve lifelong
publishing success and is best remembered (popularly) for the
movie "Rear Window." He wrote many mystery novels and short
stories, using both the name Woolrich and William Irish."

Foley wrote this from memory and, not surprisingly, some of the
details are incorrect. Woolrich won the $10,000 prize from College
Humor for his second novel CHILDREN OF THE RITZ (1927), which also
won him a contract as a screenwriter in Hollywood.

I don't have the Nevins bio/bibliography of Woolrich handy (one day
I will find it while searching my stacks for something else)but I am
reasonably certain that the story "Goodbye New York" came after he
returned to writing with sales to the detective pulps.

Richard Moore

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