GLR May-June 2023

very fine thing indeed.” More than any of the artists who por trayed James, Sargent had psychological insight into the char acter of his subject. The painting received immediate acclaim. Before it was hung in the National Portrait Gallery in London, Sargent’s portrait was exhibited in San Francisco and Boston, returning to England in 1916 on a ship that, two years later, would be torpedoed by a German U-boat. Some of the portraits discussed in this book had a second life when the Henry James revival took off in the 1960s, and images of the Master appeared on paperback editions of his works. Henry James Framed is a beautifully produced book. The illustrations are first-rate, and the design allows for easy access to footnotes. Many readers skip footnotes, but Michael Anesko, a professor at Penn State, writes with such wit and clar ity, it would be a mistake not to dig further into the delights he has served up in this book.

liking the painting, gave it to James’ biographer Leon Edel, who discovered a second portrait, a sketch of the finished work, hid den behind the canvas—a denouement worthy of James. Both paintings now hang in the National Portrait Gallery. Only one representation of Henry James is considered to have great value aside from its association with the author. This, of course, is the masterpiece painted by John Singer Sargent in 1913, three years before James died. A group of friends, want ing to celebrate his seventieth birthday, raised funds for the painting through a subscription. At first, the very private James was bothered by the idea of a public subscription, but eventu ally appeals from friends—particularly from a woman confi dant he had known for years—caused him to change his mind. James and Sargent had been close friends for decades. Both were famous, both were lifelong bachelors, both had devoted relationships with other men. James considered the portrait “a

A Brooklyn Boy in Tangier

Y OU’VE NEVER heard of Alfred Chester? Well, you’re surely not alone. Chester died in 1971 at the age of 43 of a heart attack caused by drugs and drinking. His closest friend and staunchest supporter, Edward Field, considers it a suicide. All of Alfred Chester’s books are out of print, and he pub lished only five in his lifetime: two collec tions of short stories and three novels, if you count Chariots of Flesh , the pornographic novel published under a pseudonym. His mas terpiece is titled Exquisite Corpse . Given Chester’s obscurity, it is quite re markable that Spuyten Duyvil dared to pub lish his Moroccan correspondence. Books of letters generally sell poorly, and the letters of an obscure queer writer sell even worse. The publishers deserve a prize. Nevertheless, Al fred Chester is one of America’s great letter writers, and these letters sent between 1963 and 1965 cover a remarkable period of Amer ican culture at the height of Chester’s pow ers as a writer. In the early 1960s, Alfred Chester was well known in the New York literary world. He became quite a presence in the English speaking community in Tangier, which in cluded Paul and Jane Bowles and William Burroughs. Allen Ginsberg made a cameo ap pearance, as did Susan Sontag, Cecil Beaton, and Noel Coward. The circle was almost com pletely gay and, surprisingly to me, mainly Jewish: Alfred Chester, despite his name, was

a yeshive bokher from Brooklyn; his closest friend in Tangier was Norman Glass, a British Jew; and Jane Bowles (née Auer) grew up in a posh Jewish suburb of Long Is land. And then there were more marginal figures: Martin Tucker, Irving Rosenthal, and Ira Cohen. And Charles Wright, the gay African-American novelist, who wrote The Messenger, The Wig , and Absolutely Noth ing to Get Alarmed About , who tormented and was tormented by Chester. Chester writes a lot about the Moroccan men who found their way into the circle gen erally through the backdoor. Of greatest im portance is Dris, Chester’s partner through most of this period, who was a very sexy twenty-year-old with a face that was more eye-catching than handsome. Chester could be abusive, and Dris took a lot of abuse, but he was unquestionably loved, and when he showed promise as a painter, Chester was more than supportive. He translated for Dris as they make the rounds of the London art galleries. Then there’s Larbi Layachi, who was a servant to Bowles. Although illiterate, he was such a good storyteller that Bowles tape recorded his accounts in Maghrebi, the Ara bic dialect of Morocco, and then translated them into English. In 1964, while Chester was still residing in Tangier, Larbi’s book A Life Full of Holes was published in New York. Larbi came to the U.S. to promote the book, with practically no money and few

D AVID B ERGMAN

VOYAGE TO DESTRUCTION The Moroccan Letters of Alfred Chester Edited by Edward Field Spuyten Duyvil. 300 pages, $25.

Alfred Chester. Courtesy Edward Field.

arrangements. Chester wrote detailed instructions to Edward Field, who was living in New York, to assist the ill-prepared Larbi, who spoke no English, read no language, and had never

David Bergman, G&LR poetry editor, is the author of the recently repub lished Gaiety Transfigured: Gay Self-Representation in American Literature . 34

TheG & LR