{"product_id":"9780811216678","title":"The Way It Wasn't: From the Files of James Laughlin","description":"\u003cp\u003eLavishly illustrated, The Way It Wasn't offers an intimate firsthand encounter with 20th-century Modernism, from the extraordinary man who defined it for America.\u003cbr\u003eJames Laughlin—poet, ladies' man, heir to a steel fortune, and the founder of New Directions—was still at work on his autobiography when he died at 83. He left behind personal files crammed with memories and memorabilia: in \"M\" he is taking Marianne Moore to Yankee games (outings captured here in charming snapshots) to discuss \"arcane mammals,\" and in \"N\" nearly plunging off a mountain, hunting butterflies with Nabokov (\"Volya was a doll in a very severe upper-crust Russian way\").\u003cbr\u003eWith an accent on humor, The Way It Wasn't is a scrapbook loaded with ephemera—letters and memories, clippings and photographs. This richly illustrated album glitters like a magpie's nest, if a magpie could have known Tennessee Williams, W.C. Williams, Merton, Miller, Stein, and Pound. In \"C\": \"I wish that nice Jean Cocteau were still around. He took me to lunch at the Grand Véfours in the Palais-Royal and explained all about flying saucers. He understood mechanical things. He would advise me.\" In \"P\": \"There was not much 'gracious living' in Pittsburgh, where at one house, the butler passed chewing gum on a silver salver after coffee.\" And: \"The world is full of a large number of irritating people.\" In \"H\" there's Lillian Hellman: \"What a raspy character. When I knocked at her door to try to borrow one of her books (hoping to butter her up) she only opened her door four inches and said words to the effect: 'Fuck off, you rapist.'\" Marketing in \"M\": \"I think it's important to get the 'troubadours' into the title. That's a 'buy-me' word.\" In \"G\": \"Olga asked Allen Ginsberg if he was also buying Pound Conference T-shirts for his grandchildren. She was most lovable throughout.\" In \"L\": \"Wyndham Lewis wrote 'Why don't you stop New Directions, your books are crap.'\" And we find love in \"L\": \"Cicero noted that an old love pinches like a crab.\" But in The Way It Wasn't James Laughlin's love of the crazy world and his crazier authors does not pinch a bit: it glows with wit and enlarges our feeling for the late great twentieth century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47008282476784,"sku":"9780811216678","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780811216678_p0.jpg?v=1763813506","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780811216678","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}