I am not a fan of the boxing, you know, but I found this account of Oscar Hijuelos’s friendship with August Wilson in today’s New York Times charming, I guess because there’s nothing like an account of a famous writer’s friendship behind closed doors. Hijuelos writes of sitting down to a boxing match on pay-per-view with Wilson last May, and says of the playwright,
He loved discussing literature: Ralph Ellison, Gabriel García Márquez, James M. Cain, Jorge Luis Borges and Tennessee Williams were but a few of the writers we talked about over the years. We tried to maintain a scholarly tone about such things, especially when our wives were around, but when it was just the two of us, our upbringings kicked in and our language was riddled with scatological turns of phrase. August’s sentences blossomed with such language, especially when we came to the history of slavery and the black man in this country.
That night in May, as on so many similar nights, we ended up in my study to watch the fight, the sound turned low and some Clifford Brown on the stereo until the main event finally came on. In times past he’d sit in that room with guests ranging from my old, blue-collar neighborhood friends to Lou Reed, who, to August’s delight, played a couple of his songs one evening on a nylon string guitar. But whoever had joined us, August always remained somewhat apart from the persona of one who had received so much acclaim.
If he at all considered his creative output the product of genius, he distanced himself from such thoughts, as if the social August Wilson were the caretaker of the creator. He talked books, boxing and jazz; sometimes about his own plays, the hard work of putting them on, the vagaries of tinkering with the script. And often he spoke about his family: especially his little girl, Azula.
“Sign your novel for me, but make it out to Azula,” he’d say. “It’s for her library.”
Famous writers are just people, but we don’t often think of them that way. Thanks Oscar. RIP August Wilson.
2 comments ↓
Hey thanks for your kindly words — August would have loved them.
Oscar Hijuelos
Oscar Hijuelos?! Welcome! And many thanks for your message.
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