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A Star-Bright Lie
A Star-Bright Lie recounts the age-old story of the young provincial who comes to New York and is dazzled and betrayed by the bright lights of Broadway, but with a few kinks to the story: the provincial in this case was gay and would later develop into one of America's finest novelists. Coleman Dowell left Kentucky for New York in 1950 and spent the next decade trying to "make it" in the big city. With the same stylish verve and searching analysis that illuminate his fiction, Dowell recounts his frustrating experiences in show biz: early success as staff composer for a TV show (to which he was recommended by Tennessee Williams); next, touted as David Merrick's "Golden Boy, " a failed attempt to adapt O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! as a musical; several other attempts at a hit on Broadway; and finally, a sabotaged venture at making a musical of Carl Van Vechten's novel The Tattooed Countess. Throughout this memoir are unsparing portraits of Williams, Merrick, Van Vechten, Isak Dinesen, and others of the period. But the real star is Dowell himself: "his paranoia, his bedeviled fascination with glamour, his lyric response to nature, his nostalgia for a Kentucky he'd fled and then reinvented, his Gothic sense of horror, his touchy pride, his passion for black men, his alienation from both heterosexual society and the two forms of gay life he'd known" (from novelist Edmund White's foreword). Illustrated with eight pages of photographs (many, including the cover, by Van Vechten).
165 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1993
39 people want to read
About the author
Coleman Dowell
20 books9 followersBorn in Kentucky in 1925, Robert Coleman Dowell is one of the great post-war US writers. He is the author of 5 novels including One of the Children is Crying, Island People and Mrs October Was Here.
Coleman Dowell's short stories, as is much of his work, are difficult to contextualize, shatter prior conceptions of what fiction should encompass, and break away from previous fictive forms. Some of the stories include a rich, crafted Gothicism, others a compelling surrealism, and still others an expertly timed lyricism. Dowell's characters are multidimensional, sometimes moving through the stories at metafictional levels. They are always reacting to the alienation of self, attempting to understand flawed beauty, and desperately striving to focus on the numerous splintered fragments of their fractured lives. He died in 1985.
Coleman Dowell's short stories, as is much of his work, are difficult to contextualize, shatter prior conceptions of what fiction should encompass, and break away from previous fictive forms. Some of the stories include a rich, crafted Gothicism, others a compelling surrealism, and still others an expertly timed lyricism. Dowell's characters are multidimensional, sometimes moving through the stories at metafictional levels. They are always reacting to the alienation of self, attempting to understand flawed beauty, and desperately striving to focus on the numerous splintered fragments of their fractured lives. He died in 1985.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 30, 2021
A poetic-disturbing-meditation on career and sex. Though Dowell's dreams were crushed, his beautiful writing survives. A poor lad from Kentucky, Dowell (1925-1985), who first arrived in NYC in 1950 seeking, longing for fame, and leaving a legacy of 5 esteemed, but not widely read novels, jumped from the 15th floor of his partner's apartment, age 60, finally caving to despair. This, his unfinished memoir that his partner got published in 1993, nakedly sets forth, in musically hypnotic prose, Dowell's real-life dream world.
"I had sex with anybody who wanted to, of whatever sex, color, or condition. I woke up too many times to find strange heads bobbing between my legs. I learned that the odor of sex, unlike the odor of sanctity, cannot be washed from human artifacts." As a sexually abused child, he had also learned that "hatred is stronger than many varieties of love, which has as many varieties as flowers." He likens himself to a bird hopping around a birdbath and sipping: "it is the sweetness of some of the water that surprises me. I expect the filth, for I have looked at it nightly sometimes for weeks at a stretch."
His first NYC days : Times Square -- "another first never to be duplicated, the shock of that alien glare can be felt only once....the noise and sleazy shops...the big splashy restaurants and clumps of freakish people like vampires there for a convention...the silent deeps of Wall Street late at night....I could hear weeping in the wind... " With salty cameos from Elaine Stritch and Isak Dinesen, so the hazardous NYC adventure ripples for Coleman Dowell as a composer, lyricist and novelist...now praised by John Hawkes and Gilbert Sorrentino, among others.
Working on a musical with John Latouche, producer David Merrick tells him, "to do anything to keep the temperamental Latouche ("Cabin in the Sky") happy. Latouche has his own entourage at his Vermont cottage and, by now, Dowell has a lover in NYC. Still, when libido strikes, Dowell nicely crawls into a Vermont bed "with anyone and usually finds a welcome." Latouche doesnt do any work and drops dead of a heart attack. Dowell loses his composing job to others and the show, a hit, is known as "Take Me Along."
He's considered for other new musicals and as a show doctor, but these ventures vaporize and the shows are disasters anyway. Around 1957 he decides to write the book-music-lyrics for a musical version of Carl Van Vechten's novel, "The Tattooed Countess." CVV, nearing 80, is demanding and sees this project as resurrecting his once famous name. For several years Dowell is a favorite at the CVV court at the luxe San Remo building where he auditions his songs for Gloria Vanderbilt, Sidney Lumet, Langston Hughes etc...his agent Harold Freedman introduces him to a notorious producer with the oft-used agent phrase, "It's all up to you now.." When producer pounces, Dowell tells him to fuck-off and earns the enmity of his agent (Note: how agents enabled Harve Weinstein)....
This memoir shines light on the CVV parties (1957-1961) : lousy food, great champagne, boldface names galore. CVV and wife Fania were both going deaf, so screech loudly; they specialize in dramatic behaviour and are scarcely ever sober.
"I would say the Louvre under Louis XIII best presents the atmosphere. There was a measure of rivalry," along with unsavory directives. Because he was the only "unknown," Dowell became increasingly paranoid--he reveals--and insecure. He too is drinking more and has, he admits, "demon lovers." Finally, in May 1961, Dowell's "Countess" gets an OB premiere. He staked his life on this show. It opens cold, without previews, but with book, music changes and vast tech bloopers. Now Dowell is dying within a nightmare. The critics shred the piece, especially arch-philistine Howard Taubman of the NYT, drama critic for a short span until deportation to Siberia. (Described by a reliable chum of mine as "an appallingly ignorant man.")
CVV was disappointed, but Dowell was completely shattered. The show closed after 5 perfs. "Cole was deeply injured," CVV wrote a friend. Dowell at 35...was lost, though he had a steady (psychiatrist) partner w whom he lived. (He felt, alas, 'kept.') He also felt betrayed by CVV and ended the friendship. He was suffering a public humiliation. After CVV died a short time later, Fania asked, "Why did you drop us?" Dowell went on to write his novels and short stories, but reports that, even now, 23 years later, he "cannot talk or write coherently about the 'Countess' failure -- a cheap, distraught, even foolish little production."
A page or so later the memoir stops. He had jumped from the apartment balcony.
"I had sex with anybody who wanted to, of whatever sex, color, or condition. I woke up too many times to find strange heads bobbing between my legs. I learned that the odor of sex, unlike the odor of sanctity, cannot be washed from human artifacts." As a sexually abused child, he had also learned that "hatred is stronger than many varieties of love, which has as many varieties as flowers." He likens himself to a bird hopping around a birdbath and sipping: "it is the sweetness of some of the water that surprises me. I expect the filth, for I have looked at it nightly sometimes for weeks at a stretch."
His first NYC days : Times Square -- "another first never to be duplicated, the shock of that alien glare can be felt only once....the noise and sleazy shops...the big splashy restaurants and clumps of freakish people like vampires there for a convention...the silent deeps of Wall Street late at night....I could hear weeping in the wind... " With salty cameos from Elaine Stritch and Isak Dinesen, so the hazardous NYC adventure ripples for Coleman Dowell as a composer, lyricist and novelist...now praised by John Hawkes and Gilbert Sorrentino, among others.
Working on a musical with John Latouche, producer David Merrick tells him, "to do anything to keep the temperamental Latouche ("Cabin in the Sky") happy. Latouche has his own entourage at his Vermont cottage and, by now, Dowell has a lover in NYC. Still, when libido strikes, Dowell nicely crawls into a Vermont bed "with anyone and usually finds a welcome." Latouche doesnt do any work and drops dead of a heart attack. Dowell loses his composing job to others and the show, a hit, is known as "Take Me Along."
He's considered for other new musicals and as a show doctor, but these ventures vaporize and the shows are disasters anyway. Around 1957 he decides to write the book-music-lyrics for a musical version of Carl Van Vechten's novel, "The Tattooed Countess." CVV, nearing 80, is demanding and sees this project as resurrecting his once famous name. For several years Dowell is a favorite at the CVV court at the luxe San Remo building where he auditions his songs for Gloria Vanderbilt, Sidney Lumet, Langston Hughes etc...his agent Harold Freedman introduces him to a notorious producer with the oft-used agent phrase, "It's all up to you now.." When producer pounces, Dowell tells him to fuck-off and earns the enmity of his agent (Note: how agents enabled Harve Weinstein)....
This memoir shines light on the CVV parties (1957-1961) : lousy food, great champagne, boldface names galore. CVV and wife Fania were both going deaf, so screech loudly; they specialize in dramatic behaviour and are scarcely ever sober.
"I would say the Louvre under Louis XIII best presents the atmosphere. There was a measure of rivalry," along with unsavory directives. Because he was the only "unknown," Dowell became increasingly paranoid--he reveals--and insecure. He too is drinking more and has, he admits, "demon lovers." Finally, in May 1961, Dowell's "Countess" gets an OB premiere. He staked his life on this show. It opens cold, without previews, but with book, music changes and vast tech bloopers. Now Dowell is dying within a nightmare. The critics shred the piece, especially arch-philistine Howard Taubman of the NYT, drama critic for a short span until deportation to Siberia. (Described by a reliable chum of mine as "an appallingly ignorant man.")
CVV was disappointed, but Dowell was completely shattered. The show closed after 5 perfs. "Cole was deeply injured," CVV wrote a friend. Dowell at 35...was lost, though he had a steady (psychiatrist) partner w whom he lived. (He felt, alas, 'kept.') He also felt betrayed by CVV and ended the friendship. He was suffering a public humiliation. After CVV died a short time later, Fania asked, "Why did you drop us?" Dowell went on to write his novels and short stories, but reports that, even now, 23 years later, he "cannot talk or write coherently about the 'Countess' failure -- a cheap, distraught, even foolish little production."
A page or so later the memoir stops. He had jumped from the apartment balcony.
March 24, 2009
Uncompleted memoir by this sadly-neglected author who happened to be queer. This book details his involvement with Carl Van Vechten and his circle, including a disastrous production of a musical adaptation of Van Vechten's novel The Tattooed Countess with music by Dowell.
January 10, 2024
"I know that hatred is stronger than many varieties of love, which has as many varieties as flowers; and that hateful sex, being traumatic, etches itself upon the first available surface, a decidedly un-Freudian theory. But I've found on going back to my past in little dips like a bird hopping around a birdbath and sipping, it is the sweetness of some of the water that surprises me. I expect the filth, the droppings, which I can plainly see on the bottom, for I have looked at it nightly sometimes for weeks and weeks at a stretch, for thirty-five years and longer."
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews