Ann Patty

Word Count 845

A warm July evening in Paris, 1985. I was dining in a small Bistro with my friend Maurice Girodias (Uncle Mo to me) who had been deported back to his native France. Maurice’s life had been one of flamboyant triumphs followed by spectacular downfalls.  As a young man in the 50s, he had established the Olympia Press, where his titles ranged from Henry Miller, Jean Genet, William Burroughs, Vladimir Nabokov, and Samuel Beckett to the notorious “Traveler’s Companion” series, pure porn published in English for American GIs. In the 60s, he had sunk all his money into a three-story, multi-themed nightclub, “La Grand Severin” which was closed by the gendarmes after its production of de Sade’s “The Philosopher in the Bedroom.  Maurice went bankrupt.

After successfully fending off numerous lawsuits, finally, in 1964, he was prosecuted for publishing obscene literature, sentenced to a year in jail, banned from publishing for ninety years, and fined $20,000--the harshest penalty ever imposed on a publisher for “ outrage aux moeurs par la voie du livre. “

Maurice fled to New York, and there established The Freeway Press-- a perfect title for a publisher who was either broke or flush, depending on whether Maurice had found someone to support his enterprises.  His debonair personality, idealism, and publishing history had loosened the pockets of more than one millionaire.  During the two years I worked for him, we were escorted from three different offices by the marshals for non-payment of rent.  “Oh Annie,” he would lament, “I just need some rich person to say, ‘Here, Girodias, take this and do what you do!’”

He ran afoul of the Scientologists after publishing an expose (the first by many years) about them; they reported him to the IRS and immigration authorities, planted drugs on him, called the police, and as a result, Maurice was “invited to leave the country”.  So back to Paris he went, broke again. 

I treated him to dinner my first night there, where he regaled me with his plans for a book and exposition entitled “Human Beauty”.  He thought he was close to finding a sponsor and an exhibition space. As he waxed on about his vision, I finally said, “But Maurice, what you’re describing will have to include every person ever born and everything ever made by human hands!  How can you possibly do that?”

“Ah Annie,” he said with an insouciant grin, “you must understand, it is the largeness of the fantasy that matters most.”

Our evening ended with him bemoaning my paying for the meal.  “Annie, this is unacceptable.  You’ve become a successful publisher!  I should be draping you with pearls and celebrating you with champagne.” 

The day after our dinner, he travelled to Switzerland “on business” for three days, and returned to invite me to dinner, insisting it was to be his treat.  When I asked where he had gotten the money he merely smiled, and said, “nothing you need to know.”

It was a small bistro in Le Marais. The long and narrow dining room held two rows of banquette tables and was suffused with a soft red glow. We were seated near the front of the restaurant at a tiny banquette table almost elbow to elbow with the diners beside us. Maurice had ordered his favorite Sancerre. Like him, I ordered the fois de veau, not checking my French with him, and was dismayed when a big slab of beef liver appeared on my plate. I hated liver, but I didn’t want to hurt Maurice so I soldiered through several bites, with that half-chewing motion one uses to avoid the taste palette of the tongue. And then it began…

From an unseen back table came a loud, clangorous laugh. A moment later it became a chorus of laughter, which quickly  travelled to the next table, then the next, and the next with more laughter still and we listened, spellbound, until, like a roaring contagion, it finally reached us and we too broke into uncontrollable laughter.  And it wasn’t just any laughter, but that deep helpless laughter that overtakes you, hits your gut, cracks you open, makes you pant and tear up. 

 As glance met glance throughout the restaurant, the laughter roared and amplified.  None of us, save that first table, had any idea what we were laughing about – nevertheless, we were laughing helplessly. 

After this went on for several minutes, the management, obviously fearing hysteria, blasted WE ARE THE WORLD at top volume, which quelled the laughter.  When the music ended, there was a brief reprise of room-wide chortles, and then the entire room lapsed into an awestruck silence.  

Could this have happened in anyone’s company other than Maurice--a romantic revolutionary who changed the publishing world to his own peril and ended with nothing but his abiding idealism and self-deprecating humor.  A man who embodied the Cosmic joke, with its play on the sufferings, joys, and absurdities of the human condition.

As we bid adieu at my hotel, I thanked Maurice for giving me something much rarer and more valuable than any strand of pearls.  

Ann is the author of LIVING WITH A DEAD LANGUAGE; My Romance with Latin (Viking/Penguin, 2016) . Her essays have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Linga Franca, Society for Classical Studies, Oprah.com, The Bucket, Publishers’ Weekly, and The Toast. She was the founder and publisher of The Poseidon Press and an executive editor at Crown Publishers and Harcourt. She currently rusticates in the Hudson Valley, with her husband and dog.