My editor is as proud a woman as I have ever been around, and I grew up in the South. Her grooming is perfect and one could purchase a small used car for the cost of one of her suits. I was sitting beside Nan when she whispered an urgent message in my ear: “This restaurant doesn’t take credit cards! Did you bring any money, Pat?”
“Not a penny, Nan,” I said.
“We need to talk to the headwaiter. Would you come with me? I’ve never been so embarrassed,” she said.
The headwaiter repeated the restaurant policy of no credit cards and no checks and sent us into the kitchen to plead with the chef, who was also the owner. Nan and I entered the hectic atmosphere of a kitchen in full throttle, and a dark flame of a man moved out to meet us.
Nan said, “I’m a New York publisher in town for the ABA, and I’m told you don’t take credit cards. I’ve never heard of a restaurant that doesn’t accept credit cards.”
“Welcome to my establishment, madam,” the chef said. He did impervious as well as any man I have ever seen. This guy carried himself with the sangfroid of Auguste Escoffier and displayed the presence of a field commander in the Marine Corps. “We do not accept credit cards, but my staff and I do wish to be paid for our labors. I hope the meal was adequate.”
“The best I have ever eaten, my friend,” I said.
The chef nodded and said again, “My staff and I simply wish to be paid for our services.”
“This is such a dreadful rule,” Nan said, but she had met her match. Then she began removing her many gold bracelets, soon holding a king’s ransom out to the stern-jawed chef.
“I shall leave my bracelets with you while I go back to the hotel, get the money, and come right back here,” Nan said with some desperation in her voice.
The chef shook his head no and said again, “We wish to be paid for our labors. Nothing less, nothing more.”
“Hey, pal,” I said, “I don’t know you, but I’d take that jewelry and pray this woman never comes back to this restaurant.”
“My staff and I work hard. We deserve compensation for our labors. I suggest you return to your table and tell the others of your dilemma. Someone at the table has the money I assure you.”
So poor Nan returned to the table, told of her utter humiliation by a priggish, dreadful man in the kitchen, and asked to borrow the money to pay for the meal. One of the English editors pulled out a bright wad of traveler’s checks from Barclays and paid the bill in full. I suggested right then that Nan get the chef to write a cookbook and publish it before he got famous, but Nan was miffed and declared she would not publish a word written by that man.
The weekend in New Orleans was triumphant and unrepeatable. It will never happen to me again, but then it never happens once to most people. I am deeply appreciative. I got to hear one of my literary heroes, Walker Percy, deliver a speech, then Houghton Mifflin threw me a party at the house where Frances Parkinson Keyes (one of my mother’s favorite writers) lived and worked. The great Walter Cronkite introduced me to the booksellers, and I spoke to them before the comedian Carol Burnett followed with her speech.
I spoke to the booksellers about my mother’s dream of my becoming a “Southern” writer. I told of my growing up in the household of a fighter pilot and the forces that shaped me as a boy. Then I told them about the publication of my first book, The Boo, which I published myself out of ignorance and provinciality. I silenced the laughter when I told them about the death of the mother who had raised me to be a writer. When I sat down, my life had changed forever. There was a huge line when I got to the Houghton Mifflin booth. It was against the rules for a line to form on the convention floor, but the chief of sales, Steve Lewers, said he didn’t give a damn, paid a hefty fine, and let the booksellers line up by the hundreds. The first person in that line was Walter Cronkite, and I have never forgotten that graceful gesture.
If I could choose background music for that time in New Orleans, I would choose the “Triumphal March” from Aida without a moment’s hesitation.
But here is the memory I carry most strongly from that storied weekend. Fifteen years later, I was walking through the den where my wife, Cassandra, was watching a show on the Food Network. A dark-haired chef, a dark flame of a man, was filleting a grouper with great expertise. I stared at the man and said to Sandra, “I know that guy.”
“How do you know him?” my wife asked. She and I were still new to each other, and new to an addiction to the Food Network, so she didn’t know the chef’s name either.
Slowly, it returned: the image of Nan Talese removing the bracelets from her arm in the kitchen of a world-class restaurant. I put it all together and realized that Nan and I had met Emeril Lagasse in the earliest stages of his career. I adore his show and think he’s sexy as hell. I love it when he shouts out, “Bam! Let’s bring it up a notch or two.” I roar my approval along with the bedazzled audience.
When I mentioned to Nan that I had identified the chef of that restaurant in New Orleans as Emeril Lagasse, I could not help but taunt her. “You never listen to my advice. You should have published Emeril’s first cookbook.”
“He was a perfectly dreadful man,” Nan said.
“No, he and his staff simply wanted to be paid for their labor,” I said, laughing on the phone.
EMERIL’S BARBECUED SHRIMP WITH ROSEMARY BISCUITS “These shrimp aren’t really barbecued. Instead, this is my take on a classic New Orleans dish where whole shrimp are baked with butter, olive oil, and spices. When Emeril’s opened, we took the dish up another notch and created this amazingly rich sauce for sautéed shrimp. The barbecue base will keep for a month, tightly covered in the refrigerator. Try the same sauce with oysters, adding the oysters to the sauce after it has reduced enough to coat the back of a spoon.” —Emeril Lagasse
• SERVES 4 TO 6
FOR THE BARBECUED SHRIMP
2 pounds medium shrimp in their shells
1 tablespoon Emeril’s Original Essence or your favorite Creole seasoning
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
FOR THE BARBECUE SAUCE BASE
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup finely chopped yellow onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3 lemons, peeled, white pith removed, and quartered
½ cup dry white wine
2 cups shrimp stock
1 cup Worcestershire sauce
FOR THE ROSEMARY BISCUITS
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon coarse or kosher salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
½ to ¾ cup buttermilk
1. To prepare the shrimp: Peel and devein the shrimp, leaving their tails attached. (Reserve the shells, if desired, to make the shrimp stock.) Season the shrimp with Emeril’s Original Essence and black pepper, tossing to coat evenly. Cover and refrigerate while you make the sauce base and biscuits.
2. To make the barbecue sauce base: Heat the olive oil in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, salt, pepper, and bay leaves and cook, stirring, until the onion is soft, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic, lemons, and white wine and cook for 2 minutes.
3. Add the shrimp stock and Worcestershire sauce and bring to a boil over high heat.
4. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the sauce is reduced to ½ cup, about 1¼ hours.
5. Strain the sauce through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean container, pressing on the solids with the back of a spoon. Set aside until needed. (The sauce base can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.)
6. To make the rosemary biscuits: Preheat the oven to 400°F.
7. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Work the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips or a fork until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the rosemary. Add ½ cup buttermilk a little at a time, using your hands to work it in just until incorporated and a smooth ball of dough forms. Add up to an additional ¼ cup buttermilk if necessary, being very careful not to overwork the dough, or the biscuits will be tough.
8. On a lightly floured surface, pat the dough into a circle about 7 inches in diameter and ½inch thick. Using a 1-inch round cookie cutter, cut out 12 biscuits.
9. Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake until golden on top and lightly browned on the bottom, 10 to 12 minutes. Keep warm.
10. To finish the shrimp: Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the seasoned shrimp and cook, stirring, until they begin to turn pink, about 2 minutes. Add the cream and ¼ cup barbecue sauce base, reduce the heat to medium-high, and simmer, stirring, until reduced by half, about 3 minutes.
11. Remove the shrimp from the pan with tongs and transfer to a platter. Over medium-low heat, gradually whisk the butter into the sauce. Remove from the heat.
12. Place 2 or 3 biscuits on each plate. Divide the shrimp among the biscuits and top each serving with the sauce. Serve immediately.
My longtime literary agent Julian Bach and I moved in different circles, and I consider it a small miracle that he entered my life at the precise time I needed him most. The superintendent had fired me from teaching the children of Daufuskie Island, and I was in the fierce process of handwriting the book that became The Water Is Wide. My firing had attracted some national attention. Betsy Fancher had written a brilliant article in South Today that was carried on the wires to California. Joe Cummings came down from Newsweek and my name attracted the adjective “controversial” for the first but not the last time in my life. I had completed two hundred pages on yellow legal pads when a journalist named Richard Bruner came to my door to change the direction of my life. He took down the details of my story with the efficiency and craft I had come to admire in print journalists. After he completed the interview, I showed Richard Bruner my writing room, which was covered with the manuscript pages and a copy of my first, self-published book, The Boo.
“You need an agent for this new book, pal,” he said. “How did you pay for the printing of The Boo?”
“I told Willie Scheper at the bank that I had written a book about The Citadel and he offered to write me a check for three thousand dollars on the spot.”
“Did you sell any?” he asked.
“Sold them all,” I said. “Our first printing was for fifteen hundred copies and we just went back to press.”
“You really need an agent, son.” Richard Bruner wrote Julian Bach’s name, phone number, and address on a sheet of paper. “Julian’s good. I’d say he’s the best.”
In three tight paragraphs I wrote down every word I would say to Julian Bach if I could get him to come to the phone. I practiced in front of a mirror, hoping I sounded sincere but not maudlin, resolute but not desperate. For one hour I sat by the phone summoning the courage to place the call. Even I understood that an encounter with Julian Bach could play a huge role in whatever career as a writer I might have. I dialed his number in New York and tried to sound professional and dignified when his receptionist, Diane Cusumano, answered the phone. For some reason I thought Diane would put up more of a fight to keep an amateur out of her boss’s life, but Diane was accommodating and sweet and before I was ready for my grand entrance onto the stage of Julian Bach, a most impatient, authoritative male voice was on the line.
“Yes, yes, what is it? Who are you and why are you calling me?”
“Mr. Bach,” I read, shaken, “I have written a book about a year I spent teaching on a Carolina sea island.”
“Who are you? What’s your name? How did you get to this office?”
I had not written that information down. “I taught eighteen black children for a year before I was fired.”
“Do you have a name, young man? Where are you calling from?”
“My name is Pat Conroy and I live in Beaufort, South Carolina.”
“Get to the point. Who sent you to me?”
“A man named Richard Bruner.”
“Oh, Dick, of course,” Julian said. “Look, I get lots of calls from kids who want to write; most of them turn out to be losers. Get me a freshly typed manuscript by Friday and I will put it with my weekend reading. I make no promises.” He slammed the phone down without saying goodbye, hurting my Southern-boy feelings.
I walked downstairs and joined my wife, Barbara, and my mother in the kitchen.
“Did you call Mr. Bach?” Barbara asked.
“I think he said I’ve got a New York agent,” I said, as the two women in my life screamed out of relief and pressure.
“I have to get him a freshly typed manuscript by Friday,” I said.
“Does he know you don’t know how to type?”
“No, I was ashamed to tell him.”
“Don’t worry,” Barbara said, rushing to the phone. “I’m calling everyone we know in Beaufort who types. We’ll give them each one chapter and tell them to get it back to us tomorrow.”
My wife and mother marshaled a small battalion of friends in the town of Beaufort who drove or ran to our house as soon as they were called to action. Ting Colquhoun and Betty Sams hurried over from their nearby houses. My English teacher Millen Ellis arrived as Harriet Keyserling was coming through the back door. All night, those friends came crossing through the front door to receive a chapter of my handwritten manuscript.
“We need it back tomorrow morning,” my mother would shout. Barbara would say, “Pat’s got himself a New York agent.”
All returned the next morning with their chapters completed. Barbara began putting the manuscript together, but we instantly stumbled on one problem, which we had not anticipated. Some of those glorious typists who banged out pages for Julian Bach had used onionskin paper, others long yellow sheets, and still others short blue sheets. Since I didn’t type, I didn’t know about the existence of pica or elite or that kind of typescript that looks like handwriting. Harriet Keyserling had typed her chapter on her personal stationery. The first chapter’s pages were numbered one to twenty, the second chapter’s one to seventeen, the third chapter’s one to twenty-five, and so on.
But Julian Bach wanted to have it for his weekend and, by God, he would get it for his weekend read. Jack Colquhoun was waiting for me at the post office when I arrived at closing time. He boxed the manuscript and shipped it special delivery to Julian Bach Jr. Literary Agency, 3 East 48th Street, New York, NY 10017. His phone number was Plaza 3–4331. Cable address: Turtle News, New York. Jack mailed it off as we embraced in the mailroom.
Friday I received a phone call from Julian Bach telling me that the manuscript had arrived. Then he said, “Pat, I have to tell you, I haven’t read a single word of it, but it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s being passed around to everyone in the office. It’s making quite a hit.”
I hung up the phone, mortified. A sense of shame washed over me that I could not shake or control. What I had wanted most of all was to attract the admiration of a New York agent, not his laughter and certainly not his scorn. Since I had not held a job in six months, my mother and wife had leapt through a window of opportunity opened by the unforeseeable arrival of Julian Bach in my life. But it was I who should have acted in a professional manner; it was my name on the manuscript and my name on the return address. I thought I had lost my greatest chance to discover if I was a real writer or not. I was bereft and told no one about my conversation with Julian Bach. Later that week I drove to a chicken farm outside Allendale to apply for a job. The farmer asked me if I was that teacher who’d been fired down in Beaufort County, and when I answered in the affirmative he tore up my application and said he needed s
omeone he could trust with his chickens. In a season chock-full of low points, that was as bad as it got.
Three weeks later the letter arrived from the Julian Bach agency and the shock of seeing that address from the fabled city of New York nearly brought me to my knees. I felt astonishment, despair, and then hopelessness. If this man turned my book down, I had no idea what would happen to me and my family. So much was riding on this single letter that I did not rip it open at once. Instead I went to the back door, got into my 1969 yellow Volkswagen convertible, and drove across the bridge and out toward the beach. I took the left at the dirt road that led to Dataw Island, a magnificent hunting preserve owned by my good friend the historian Larry Rowland. One of the many ways Larry was a good friend was his presentation of a key to the gate of Dataw. I had free access not only to the island but to the graceful, music box–like house that his father had built with his own hands.
Parking the car by the house, I took the letter to the end of the dock and sat there staring at it. For fifteen minutes I studied the name of the Julian Bach agency, but I was paralyzed by fear of what it might say. Looking at the river, then back at the small white house where I would one day house the Wingo family in The Prince of Tides, I opened the letter and began reading it. Today, that letter hangs on my den wall in Fripp Island. Here is what it says:
Dear Conroy-Conrack, warmly. I have read all the material you sent and so has Wendy Weil, my associate—and we find it exceptionally exciting. More than you may yet realize, you were born lucky. You are a natural writer. Few people are. This is what we are about to do [here is where I began to fall in love with Julian Bach]: