MCALMON, ROBERT 9

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Ted Morgan, Williams, Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound, Maugham, New York: Simon & Mary Butts, Gertrude Stein, H. D., Djuna Schuster, 1980. Barnes, and Saikaku Ihara [Quaint Tales of Geoff Puterbaugh Samurais). In their magazine Williams and MCALMON,ROBERT McAlmon had called for an "essential (1896-1956) contact between words and the locality." American writer and publisher. In his own fiction, McAlrnon achieved McAlmon was born in Clifton, Kansas, the that goal. His own Contact Press issued son of an itinerant Presbyterian minister, his first volumes: A Hasty Bunch (1922),A the youngest of ten children. Of his mother Companion Volume (19231, Post-Adoles- (BessUrquhart], he wrote: "Her love's my cence (1923), Village: As It Happened prison,/ and my pity is the lock." The through a Fifteen Year Period (19241, Dis- family migrated through a number of South tinguished Air (Grim Fairy Tales) 11 925); Dakota towns into Minneapolis and even- while Black Sun Press published The In- tually California. McAlmon attended the definite Huntress and 0 ther Stories (Paris, universities of Minnesota (1916) andsouth- 1932).In his portraits of Dakota farm life, em California (191 7-20], but he received Greenwich Village parties, and gay Berlin, more education as a Western farmhand, as McAlmon wrote it down just as it hap- a merchant mariner, and in the Army Air pened, but he did not then find and has not Force, where he was stationed at San Di- now found a wide audience. His four vol- ego in 1918. The airmen inspired his first umes of poetry found a wider range of poems published in college and in Poetry publishers: Explorations (London: Egoist (March 19191. Press, 19211, The Portrait of a Generation In 1920, McAlmon moved first to (Paris: Contact, 1926)) North America, Chicago and then to New York City in Continent of Conjecture (Paris: Contact, search of freedom and companions. In New 1929))Not Alone Lost (Norfolk, CT: New York he worked nude as a male model and Directions, 1937). But his only book to formed a life-long friendship with artist find wide circulation has been his memoir and poet Marsden Hartley. With William of the twenties: Being Geniuses Together Carlos Williams, McAlmon founded Con- (London: Secker & Warburg, 1938). And tact, which in its short life published Ezra even it has been somewhat diluted with Pound, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, interleaved chapters by Kay Boyle in the H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Kay Boyle, and later (New York: Doubleday, 1968; San Hartley. Francisco: North Point, 1984)editions. On February 14,1921, McAlmon McAlmon became a drinking married Bryher (Winifred Ellerman], heir- buddy with both James Joyce and Ernest ess to a vast English fortune and H. D.'s Hemingway. When a prude destroyed the lover. Their arrangement-"legal only, only copy of the concluding erotic solilo- unromantic, and strictly an agreement," quy in Ulysses, McAlmon reconstructed McAlmon wrote-served both Bryher, who the text from Joyce's notes, improvisingas received control of her inheritance, and he went along. Hemingway's relationship McAlmon, who gained financial independ- with McAlmon was rockier. McAlmon ence. (They were amicably divorced in took him to his first bullfight and pub- 1927.)After a short stay in London, McA1- lished his first two books, but Hemingway mon made Paris his base where his Con- was upset by McAlmon's homosexuality. tact Press published (with Three Moun- McAlmon teased Hemingway for his tains Press) a group of then-unpublishable friendship with F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose authors: Bryher, Mina Loy, Ernest Hem- cock Hemingway examined at a urinal. ingway, Marsden Hartley, William Carlos Both James Joyce and Ezra Pound declared O MCALMON, ROBERT that McAlmon was tougher, more coura- Ginsberg with his poetry or Jack Kerouac geous, and a better writer than Heming- with his prose made "first thought best way. thought" an axiom, McAlmon was dead. McAlmon kept his distance from Moreover, his precise rendering of gay bar the French homosexuals. From parties, talk in Distinguished Air (1925) may be bars, and cafes he knew Jean Cocteau, too advanced even now. He uses terms like Raymond Radiguet, RenC Crevel, Louis "blind meat" (uncircumcised hard cock Aragon, and others. While his French may whose foreskin does not pull back), "rough not have been sufficient to follow their trade," and "auntie." writings, Dada and Surrealism left him McAlmon wrote very little after completely cold. His ties were closer with 1935; he was interested in radical politics artists Francis Picabia and Constantin but found little support among the expatri- Brancusi, but McAlmon saw in Europe ates. He was caught in France by the Ger- only "the rot of ripe fruit." man occupation, came down with tuber- John Glassco, who arrived as a culosis, and escaped through Spain to the teenager in Paris with his best friend and United States, where he joined his broth- who received financial favors from McAl- ers in a surgical supply house in El Paso. mon, claims that he and his friend did not He died at Desert Hot Springs, California, have to put out for the older man because in 1956. "he was more vain of being seen with youngmen than actually covetous of their BIBLIOGRAPHY. Robert E. Knoll, McAlmon and the Lost Generation, A favors." McAlmon1s preferences for men Self Portrait, Lincoln: University of are not entirely clear: he found Marsden Nebraska, 1962; idem., Robert McAl- Hartley too old. McAlmon liked bullfight- mon: Expatriate Publisher and Writer, ers who (likehimself) had tight, lean bod- Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1959; ies. AParis bartender describes McAlmonfs Robert K. Martin and Ruth L. Strikland, "Robert McAlmon," American Writers impassioned speech defending Plato, in Paris, 1920-1 939, Karen Lane Rood, Michelangelo, and other creative geniuses ed., Detroit: Gale Research, 1980; who celebrated the masculine form. "I'm Sanford 1. Smolier, Adrift Among a bisexual myself," McAlmon shouted, Geniuses: Robert McAlmon, Writer and "like Michelangelo, and 1 don't give a Publisher of the Twenties, University Park: Pennsylvania State University damn who knows it." (Asimilar speech is Press, 1975. credited by other sources to Arthur Cra- Charley Shively ven, Mina Loy's lover, who claimed to be Oscar Wilde's nephew and was a profes- sional boxer.) In the 1950s, McAlmon wrote, "There are no real homos, male or MCCARTHYISM female, but there is the bi-sex, and in more The political tactics of theunited people than know it themselves." The States Senator from Wisconsin Joseph R. "real abnorms" were the men who swag- McCarthy (1908-1957) have since the ger "with virility ." 1950s been labeled McCarthyism. They How can one explain McAlmonls consisted in poorly founded but sensation- lack of success? He had little appreciation, ally publicized charges against individuals but Fitzgerald and Hemingway were ru- in government service or public life whom inedby toomuchacclaim.Hedrankplenty McCarthy accused on the Senate floor of and enjoyed drugs, but so did Joyce, being Communists, security risks, or oth- Cocteau, and Crevel. Coming into money erwise disloyal or untrustworthy. Senator mayhavebeenconupting, butH.D. thrived McCarthyfs campaign did not spare "sex with the Ellerman wealth. Perhaps he was perverts in government," and so it made too far ahead of his time. When Allen homosexuality an issue in American po-