The exciting life of a young writer in 70's
Above, the Afterword from my first published tome, “The Complete Van Book,” which I wrote after leaving the Village Voice. That’s my friend Terry Arthur the photographer on the left and yours truly on the right, lounging around the pool at the Glen Valley Inn on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley during “research” for the book. The cover of the book, published by Crown in 1976, is shown below.
I took a Dodge van customized by one of the van builders in the book and went on a 28 day tour through 20 states and 25 cities promoting the book. I hired a 21 year old cab driver from East Harlem to drive me. We drove the van into the television studios of morning, noon, and six o’clock news shows to do interviews. We made appearances in front of I don’t know how many B. Dalton Bookstores in countless malls outside of cities like Dallas and Phoenix and Jacksonville. I gave interviews to anyone with either a microphone or a notebook from coast to coast. Here’s me before we set out from L.A. on the tour.
My driver had never flown on a plane before I put him on a flight to L.A. where we picked up the van, nor had he been any further west than Palisades Park in New Jersey. By the time we made our third or fourth television appearance, he had figured out how to light the van so it would show up good for the cameras. He would snake microphone cords into the backseat so you couldn’t see them in the shot. He met so many union guys — they were all guys — working for shows across the country and collected so many references, he got a job working on a morning news show in L.A. at the end of the tour and quit driving a cab for good.
As for me, after writing a few more magazine pieces, I got tired of being on the road and signed a contract to write my first novel in the spring of 1977. With the royalties from the van book, I rented an apartment in Sag Harbor and sat down that summer and wrote “Dress Gray.”
This is the photo of the author on the book’s back cover, taken two years after the photo of Terry Arthur and me at the Glen Valley pool.
Aaaahhhh, the life of a young writer on the loose in the 70’s!
I’m an old writer now, settled down with Tracy and a passel of kittens in Northeast Pennsylvania, looking forward to my kids visiting next month and the next turn of the screw in the news cycle, of which you will be apprised anon.
I think your van book was featured in one of the Whole Earth Catalogs.
Last year, I was in danger of losing my house. Long story -- too long, but it had nothing to do with me not paying my mortgage and after many months and ridiculous legal fees, the issue has been resolved, I won't be tossed out on the street, etc., but it was tense. The only reason I didn't have a nervous breakdown was because I couldn't afford one -- but I DID buy a book about how to live in a van.
Handsome guy with pensive stares, you were. In September of 1970, I met a flaming redheaded man with a beard to match. He had just come back from Nam 3-6 months earlier. He had a VW van. It had no heat and this was Washington, DC at the time. We would go to Rock Creek Park and Georgetown bundled up under Army wool blankets. Decorated it with a bed and bells. Yep, we were unapologetic hippies! 1974, we moved to the Bay Area where this guy was from. One of his buddies had a dark green VW van equipped with a sink, a closet, and a bed. Had it for two years. Fast forward to 1976, that guy and I got married in Reno, NV and partied in South Lake Tahoe with 7 friends riding in a slightly newer used VW van equipped with a bed, a pop-up loft, a sink, storage spaces and a collapsible table. We thought we were the shit...until a drunken woman hit it in the rear, right in front of our house, totaling it out. I was devastated. The guy I married and am still with, bought a jeep instead and I hated it because I was pregnant with our first then. Bouncing on the freeways didn’t make me happy. Didn’t have that vehicle very long, happily. That is my tale. I sure loved yours.