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I have discussed the first four chapters of Eleanor Bergstein's novel Advancing Paul Newman. In this part, I will discuss Chapters Five through Eight.
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A recapitulation:
After Karen "Kitsy" Frank returned from her European tour at the end of the summer of 1959, she resumed living with her parents. She began dating an intelligent, successful lawyer, Arthur Cornell, who is several years older than Kitsy and who wants to marry and begin raising a family in the near future. Since Kitsy wants to write professionally, Arthur figures that she will be able to write in her spare time while staying home as a housewife.
In the meantime, Kitsy works for a while in the publishing business and then gets a job in public television. There she aspires to adapt classics of literature into television dramas.
Kitsy become disenchanted with Arthur and intends to dump him. By snooping in his stuff, she discovers that he has been corresponding with his former girlfriend, who has married another man but regrets her marriage and wants to return to Arthur. Kitsy intends to advise Arthur to break up with herself and to return to that girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Ila Rappaport has fallen in love with an artsy man, Loren, who has dumped her and moved to Europe in the autumn of 1960.
Kitsy and Ila agree that Kitsy will move into Ila's apartment at the end of January 1961.
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Kitsy becomes disenchanted with her public-television job. She would rather work in the written-literature business. She gets a job as a secretary to literary agent and loves the job. Furthermore, the agent's personal assistant is pregnant and intends to quit her job when she approaches her due date. Kitsy hopes that she will be promoted into that personal-assistant job.
At her new job, she now goes by her proper name Karen, not her nickname Kitsy. She puts much more effort into her professional appearance, improves her wardrobe, her hairstyle and her cosmetics.
Kitsy struggles to cope with the demands of working for the literary agent. She has to master, for example, the legalities of contracts between publishers and writers. She has to manage many communications
Kitsy had become avaricious, competitive, fully engaged in her work, ....Gradually, however, Kitsy did learn to cope with her work.
Glancng down a contract, Kitsy made crisp notations in the margin. Later she couldn't understand them ... She was bewildered, it was gibberish.
... Her mind [was] full of itchy little reminders of options coming up, clauses to be checked against those in previously negotiated contracts, percentages to be figures against grosses. ....
She had .... evenings when she had a lump in her throat and she went home and stayed with her parents and her father drove her to work in the morning.
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Kitsy and Arthur agree to a three-month separation (not their first separation). They stay in contact, but they no longer date each other and are free to date others.
Kitsy and Arthur disagree about the New York City election for mayor, which took place on November 7, 1961. Kitsy supports the re-election of the incumbent mayor, Robert Wagner, and Arthur opposes the re-election. Arthur has not obtained a job in the Kennedy Administration, so instead he has gone to work as a lawyer for the New York state government.
Kitsy has difficulty making up her mind about whether she should get back together with Arthur. She has come to depend on his confident knowledge about politics and other subjects. She feels that he is intellectually superior to herself and does admire that quality in him.
Meanwhile, Ila lets her own appearance go. Living together, Kitsy and Ila gradually get on each other's nerves. One morning, Kitsy and Ila are talking with each other in a disagreeable manner, and Kitsy remarks that she would like to be able to travel around the world.
Kitsy's remark gives Ila the idea of traveling around the world herself. Ila happens to received $35,000 (the equivalent of $300,000 in 2019) as an insurance benefit after her father died. Therefore, Ila uses some of that money to travel around the world. The novel tells about her visits to Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, India, Israel, Greece, Spain, Italy, France and England.
As soon as Ila returns to the USA, she travels to Florida, where she spends a month with her mother. Then Ila returns to New York City, where she resumes living in the apartment she shares with Kitsy.
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Soon after Ila returns from Florida to New York City, Marilyn Monroe dies, on August 5, 1962. Therefore, I figure (from the month in Florida) that Ila ended her around-the-world trip at about the beginning of July 1962.
At about the time when Ila returns from her round-the-world trip, Kitsy begins to write a short story. She writes it in the first person, as if she is describing her own trip around the world. She intends to question Ila about the trip and then to use some of Ila's observations and stories in the short story. Since, however, Ila goes immediately to Florida for a month, only the first few paragraphs of Kitsy's short story get written.
In early August 1962, about the time when Marilyn Monroe dies, Ila has returned from Florida. Although Kitsy has intended, for months, to break up with Arthur, she still spends some time with him. Kitsy, Arthur and Ila travel to visit some friends who have a house near a beach. Some of the women friends are pregnant or are raising young children. Kitsy is somewhat repulsed; she does not want to get pregnant and become a mother in the near future.
At the beach they [Kitsy and a female acquaintance] went into special cabanas where they changed their suits, and Nikki's nipples were huge and spreading out and uneven -- she was nursing -- and her stomach was still blue, and the baby had crossed eyes and shrieked till her skin turned purple and pink and blotchy.Kitsy figures that she has been involved with Arthur for about three years -- since she returned from her European tour in the late summer of 1959. She decides yet again that she must break up with him.
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While Kitsy, Arthur and Ila are at the beach house, they and their mutual friends discuss Philip Roth's novel Goodbye, Columbus, because a copy of the novel happens to be in the house. It seems that the book has been read by -- or at least is familiar to -- several of the people at the beach house.
Kitsy has read Roth's novel, and in her discussion of it she focuses on a description of a refrigerator being full of fruit. Others in the discussion focus on a situation where a young woman "forgot" to bring her diaphragm along to a vacation with her boyfriend.
(I will discuss Roth's novel Goodbye, Columbus more in my next post.)
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At the beach house, Ila becomes infatuated with a psychiatrist (he is not named) who is among the guests. Ila catches his eye. She puts a record onto a record player and demonstrates some twist-dance moves she learned during her recent visit to Europe. She talks with the psychiatrist briefly and arranges to ride back into Manhattan alone with him in his car.
Kitsy is annoyed because she herself had been looking forward to spending uninterrupted time with Ila in order to question her about her round-the-world trip. Kitsy foresees that now Ila will be spending all her time instead with the psychiatrist during the coming days.
Kitsy has to ride from the beach house back to Manhattan alone with Arthur in his car. She has become repulsed by him.
... if Arthur touched her she might not be able to keep herself from shuddering.During the car ride, Arthur insults Kitsy and badmouths a new mother who had been at the beach house.
He said "all right what was going on today Kitsy, I saw that look on your face, what was going through your mean ambitious little mind?Kitsy and Arthur are still in their three-month separation, but they still find themselves spending time with each other -- for example, during this visit to the beach house.
... "That cow [the new mother] wheeling around and around [with a baby carriage] afraid she'll have to talk to the other mothers ... who is she anyway that any of the other girls would want to talk to her that homely cow."
Kitsy was frightened by the tone and said "I'm sorry I was a little off. I mean somehow it really upset me about Marilyn Monroe -- ridiculous I know but it stayed with me all day."
"You're kidding," Arthur said, "You've got to be kidding."
And she wasn't sure if he was sarcastic and if so how.
Kitsy and Ila still share an apartment, but Ila has been gone on a round-the-world trip and then on a month-long visit to her mother in Florida and now is going off alone with the psychiatrist.
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I will continue in Part 7.
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