EverythingGorey

Elephant House author

An interview with Kevin McDermott,
author of ELEPHANT HOUSE: or, The Home of Edward Gorey

Once used to the buffeting and jarring the small Cessna was enduring over a windy Cape, I began to wonder what Sally Whitehead would think of Edward Gorey's house today. For over a decade, Sally had been Mr. Gorey's housecleaner. After poring over Kevin McDermott's Elephant House: or, The Home of Edward Gorey [2003] for the umpteenth time, I tried to imagine what she could have felt as she surveyed the muddle that was the entrance room at 8 Strawberry Lane, before Gorey's passing. Contrast that with her thoughts as she viewed that same perspective three years later -- her observations could be quite profound.

I always wanted to make this trip while Gorey was alive. But after reading that he disdained drop-in fans who came by to gawk at the artist who brought so much joy in his joyless manner, I thought it prudent to gawk at his house instead, circumventing Mr. Gorey's disapproving sighs. So I waited.


"When I looked at the photograph of the bust in the window, I was surprised by the resemblance. I would like to think that something supernatural on Edward's part had taken place." -- Kevin McDermott


Months before publication, McDermott casually mentioned his upcoming project, and I recall thinking 'finally!' When he said Sam Shahid, recently of Abercrombie & Fitch notoriety, was designing the book, I thought 'goodness, this is serious - maybe this will be enough, I won't actually need to go there.' However, after Elephant House delivered so precisely what I had hoped for, I felt it now necessary to have my own Sally Whitehead experience. To furthur augment the effect, I spoke with Mr. McDermott just before my December trip to Yarmouthport:


GE: When did your career as photographer begin?

KM: As an acting student at NYU, I took several art history courses as electives. In the early 1990's I began to explore the world of fine art photography. However as young actor living in New York City, photography was an interest with too high of a price tag for me to really pursue. In 1995, I left New York and moved to Cleveland, Ohio. It was at this time that I enrolled in courses for black and white photography and darkroom technique.


Are there photographers who have influenced your work?

There are many photographers whom I admire. A few are Duane Michals, Irving Penn, Edward Weston.


ELEPHANT HOUSE is your first photographic art book. How did it come about?

I shot the photographs of Edward's house and then I put them away. Somehow I didn't feel it was appropriate to deal with the images for a couple years. When I decided I wanted to create a photography art book, I showed a couple of the images to a gallery owner in New York who I respected and asked him for some feedback. He liked the images. I then told him that I really wanted to create a book of the photographs and he recommended that I speak with Sam Shahid.


What happened next?

The next day I spoke with a friend who is the creative director of a major magazine to get his take on Sam. He was very positive. So I got up the courage to call Sam. Sam met me at the Gotham Book Mart and we went through the photos in the gallery there. He took a look at the photos and said, "Lets do it"!


What was it like working with him?

Sam is a pro. He works with the major players in the photography world, so when I would get caught up in life (and seeming) death of it all, he helped me maintain my sanity.


Did you have strong opinions about how the book was going to look before you started?

I was very clear with the organization of the book. I knew how I wanted to walk the viewer through Edward's house, and Sam and his art director, Matthew Kraus, were very open to my requests. I also knew that I wanted to use the images of Edward's elephant prints to separate the rooms. I let them design the book. I made only a few changes (and then only the order of some photographs) to Sam's design.


When I see the pictures, or rather, portraits of Gorey's possessions, I feel a story is being told. Was there a narrative being developed in your mind as you took them?

I couldn't help but feel the relationships between objects. These objects took on personas. I did approach the photographs as portraits. Also, the majority of my work as a photographer has been taking portraits of people, or placing a human figure in a landscape. So I am sure some of that came into play here in Edward's house. I found those arrangements of objects more intriguing than overall room shots.

The narrative of the journey through the house became more important to me as I constructed the book. This is when I really sat down and thought "okay, what do I want the audience (viewer) to feel at this point?" And from my experience as a producer of Gorey theatre projects, I knew how important and sometimes frustrating -- challenging may be a better word -- for imagination and discovery to come into play. I wanted to have people feel as though they are wandering through the house. The publisher wanted to put an index at the beginning of the book and also to number the pages, but I thought it was important emotionally to feel as through you had come upon the house with its front door open and you explored its contents. Of course, I wanted to guide the visitor gently.


Are there photographs that are particular favorites of yours?

The salt and pepper shakers, which I call "Edward's City"; the bust in the window "Looking Out the Window"; the still life of the concentric circles from the ball room, "Galaxies". The viewing public seems to be drawn to the blue bottles, "The Blue Hour".


The one of Dickens's bust looking out the window is intriguing because of a seemingly Goreyish visage upon it's own reflection. Has any one gone back to take another look at the bust, to see if the resemblance is palpable?

Now for this Dickens bust -- it is a bit of a mystery. Edward's friend on the Cape, Rick Jones, who now owns the bust, told the group who attended my gallery talk at the Gorey House in October [2003] that he has tried to recreate the photograph himself. He has been less than successful. I do believe it was one of those magic moments.


When you say magic moments, I feel as though you allude to a bit of the supernatural at work. Do you believe in ghosts?

I'm fascinated by the idea of ghosts. I had a very Catholic upbringing, so the idea of an after-life was drummed into me at an early age. On an intellectual level, I would say "No, I don't believe in ghosts". But on an emotional level, I would say that I'm intrigued with the possibility, and I always enjoy experiencing "happy coincidences". When I looked at the photograph of the bust in the window, I was surprised by the resemblance. I would like to think that something supernatural on Edward's part had taken place. I think he would get a chuckle from that.


Looking back to when you were creating ELEPHANT HOUSE, did you ever feel you were reliving the part of Mr. Earbrass in Gorey's The Unstrung Harp [1953]?

I now understand The Unstrung Harp in ways that I wish I didn't. Andreas Brown suggested that I give it another read while I was dealing with my publisher on the book. I had to laugh out loud, because Edward was so "right on" with his take on getting a book to market; the self doubt, the frustration of dealing with a publisher, the second guessing, that feeling of being very alone. It is amazing to me that this was Edward's first book. The fact that he could know so much about the process of writing and publishing in his first venture is incredible.


Since ELEPHANT HOUSE is a success -- now in it's 2nd printing, do you plan to publish your own works, or more books on Gorey's life and works?

Yes, I am encouraged to do more photography books. I don't know who will publish said book, but I will be putting another one together. Another book on Edward's work may be down the pike, but probably not for a while.

Edward Gorey, Artist & Author Dies at 75

I stumbled upon this article while searching the internet for information on Edward Gorey - I thought it was interesting. It may be a little long, but an informative read all the same. - Faith April 17, 2000 Edward Gorey, Artist and Author Who Turned the Macabre Into a Career, Dies at 75 By MEL GUSSOW

Edward Gorey, the artist and author who was a grand master of the comic macabre and delighted generations of readers with his spidery drawings and stories of hapless children, swooning maidens, throbblefooted specters, threatening topiary and weird, mysterious events on eerie Victorian landscapes, died on Saturday at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Mass. He was 75 and lived in Yarmouth Port, Mass. He had suffered a heart attack on Wednesday, said Elizabeth Morton, a cousin. Edmund Wilson, the first of many critics to extol Mr. Gorey's work, described his world as "poisonous and poetic." It was that and much more: witty, woeful, devious and delirious to the point of obsession. He was one of the most aptly named figures in American art and literature. In creating a large body of small work, he made an indelible imprint on noir fiction and on the psyche of his admirers. Mr. Gorey, who wrote more than 100 books and illustrated more than 60 by other authors (from Edward Lear to Samuel Beckett), also had a career in the theater, with revues based on his stories and as a scenic designer. "Dracula," in the Gorey version, was a Broadway hit in 1977. In person Mr. Gorey was as instantly identifiable as his work. Toweringly tall, he had a white beard and frothy hair, an earring in each lobe and rings on most of his fingers. When he lived in New York, he often wore a raccoon coat, although later in life he became sheepish about wearing fur. He looked foreboding, like a buccaneer between piracies or a figure out of one of his books, and his self-portrait lurks on the fringe of many of his stories. But in contrast to the work, the man was genial and gentle, and sometimes childish in his language, peppering his conversation with words like "jeepers" and "zingy." "There was this false idea that he was a brooding, melancholic man," said Andreas Brown, a friend of Mr. Gorey's and the owner of the Gotham Book Mart in Manhattan. "He was not a recluse. He was jovial and effervescent, and he loved to laugh." The books could be bizarre in the extreme. His alphabet books chronicle the mishaps of unfortunates deceived by fate. "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" begins with "A is for Amy who fell down the stairs" (a ghostly child plummeting headlong to her doom) and ends with "Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin." The stories of peril are frightful, but with a strong sense of mockery. Though sometimes mistakenly categorized as an author of children's books, Mr. Gorey appealed to all ages, at least everyone with a taste for the fanciful. Only a few of his books, including "The Wuggly Ump" and "The Bug Book," were intended specifically for young readers. In both his art and his writing Mr. Gorey was inimitable. Developing crosshatched line-drawing into an art form, he used pen and ink to create a world of barren moors, abandoned railway stations and storm-struck formal gardens. A stroller in one of those gardens could suddenly be brained by a piece of falling masonry, as in the Gorey animated film that for years has acted as a prelude to the "Mystery" series on public television. In Goreyland the moon is a skull, and no sun shines. A tiny green face peers through the curtained window of a black motor car. Frightful beasts are perched on a crag, and upstairs in the listing attic. Death is by drowning, dismemberment or being dropped by the Devil into a flaming pit. The Beastly Baby is a bulbous blob carried away by an eagle and exploding in midair. Mr. Gorey could be sportive as well as horrific, as in "The Broken Spoke," which, in his words, "combines, with breathtaking cleverness, two objects of consuming interest: postcards and bicycles." Although sometimes confused with the cartoonist Charles Addams, with whom he shared an interest in the ghoulish, Mr. Gorey generally told cautionary tales that offered moral instruction along with tearful laughter. As an artist he was close to Daumier and, with his aura of surrealism, to Magritte, as in "The Betrayed Confidence," a series of pernicious postcards, closing with wordless pictures: a dangling rope, an empty frying pan, an unmarked grave. As an author he bore the mark of S. J. Perelman, inventing an atlas that found room for place names like Nether Postlude, Backwater Hall in Mortshire (between West Elbow and Penetralia) and the Cycle Cemetery near Dingy Cruet, Blots. He also played word games with his name, anagrammatizing it in infinite ways, as Edward Gorey became Ogdred Weary, Dogear Wryde and D. Awdrey-Gore. A passionate lover of the ballet, Mr. Gorey for years ritualistically attended all performances of dances by George Balanchine at the New York City Ballet. Often he dreamed up stories about ballets and operas and occasionally designed sets, costumes and drop curtains. For many years he lived in a cluttered apartment in Manhattan, and at the end of the ballet season he would leave for his home on Cape Cod. After Balanchine's death in 1983, stripped of his primary cultural outlet, Mr. Gorey began thinking seriously about leaving New York permanently. In 1986 he moved to Cape Cod, first to Barnstable, and then to Yarmouth Port, eventually living alone in a 200-year-old house that may or may not have been haunted. In 1994 he mentioned to a visitor the strange disappearance of all the finials from his lamps along with his collection of tiny teddy bears. The house was in disarray, with esoteric objects (a toilet with a tabletop) and with no sign of Mr. Gorey's work. There was, however, a definitive Gorey touch: poison ivy creeped inside through cracks in the wall. A speed reader of writers from Agatha Christie to Jane Austen, he packed his home with books, many of them Victorian, and tempered his scholarliness with subcultural pursuits, watching soap operas and checking out horror movies from a nearby video stores. A covey of cats shared his life and, in Gorey fashion, had free run of the furniture. The number varied from five to six. If a stray showed up at his door, he would immediately welcome it in. (After his death a friend moved into the house to take care of the cats.) Mr. Gorey remembered the time that the cats were on a couch and suddenly "everyone turned," eyes opening wide, as if someone, or something, unseen had entered the room. Although the Gorey-like figure in his stories seemed icily removed, the real Mr. Gorey was a friendly neighbor on Cape Cod, holding court daily at Jack's Outback, a cafeteria-style coffee shop. He would take his personal mug from a rack reserved for regulars and join in the local gossip. He was close to his cousins, some of whom lived nearby, but there are no immediate survivors. In 1994 he was told he had prostate cancer and diabetes, and he met his illnesses with his customary cheerful demeanor. "Why haven't I burst into total screaming hysterics?" he asked, and added, "I'm not entirely enamored of the idea of living forever." Edward St. John Gorey, known to his friends as Ted, was born in Chicago on Feb. 25, 1925, the son of a Hearst journalist. "I like to think of myself as a pale, pathetic, solitary child," he said. "But it was not true." He taught himself to read at 3 1/2, and by 5, he had read "Dracula" and "Alice in Wonderland," two books that were to have a profound effect on his life. The protagonists, one evil incarnate (but he can't help it), the other all innocence and curiosity (she gets what she deserves), were to haunt his dreams and dominate his art. By 8, he had graduated to reading Victor Hugo. He taught himself to draw and subsequently took courses at the Art Institute of Chicago. Drafted into the Army at 18, he sat out the Second World War as a company clerk and in 1946 entered Harvard, where he majored in French literature and roomed with the poet Frank O'Hara. He and O'Hara joined the Poets Theater in Cambridge, Mr. Gorey as a designer, director and playwright. After graduation he remained in Boston, illustrating book jackets. Then he went to New York and worked in the art department at Doubleday, staying late in the office to create his own books. "I didn't envision a career in anything," he said, unless, perhaps, it was running a bookstore. Unable to find a publisher, he invented his own imprint, Fantod Press, and sold his books directly to stores. His first book, "The Unstrung Harp," was published in 1953. "The Doubtful Guest" (1958) quickly became a Gorey classic. In it a strange, hook-nosed creature, wearing a long scarf and tennis shoes, shows up uninvited at a dreary mansion and soon becomes a permanent member of the family, peering up flues in the fireplace, tearing up books and sleepwalking through the house. And after 17 years he showed "no intention of going away." "The West Wing" (1963) is one of Mr. Gorey's wordless masterworks. It is the house that is the central character, with its dark passageways, doors leading to other doors, a carpet that looks like a turbulent sea and shadows floating in space. A turning point in Mr. Gorey's career was his meeting with Andreas Brown. When Mr. Brown bought the Gotham Book Mart, it became the central clearing house for Mr. Gorey, presenting exhibitions of his work in the store's gallery and eventually turning him into an international celebrity. The Gotham sold great quantities of his books and also collectibles: greeting cards, T-shirts (one reads, "So many books, so little time"), calendars and stuffed toys. With the publication of his first anthology, "Amphigorey" (in 1972), followed by two sequels, his audience widened. Mr. Gorey worked slowly and precisely and because of his amiability often overcommitted himself to projects. Suddenly he would be struck with an idea, and that would draw him to his studio. In Yarmouth Port he worked in a cubicle about the size of a Gorey book. Pinned above his drawing table were postcards of paintings by Goya and Matisse (his favorite artist) and of an Indian sculpture of a tiger devouring a missionary. He said he was inspired by "practically anything visual or verbal" and always tried to keep himself open to new experiences and new images. When he saw the French silent movie "L'Enfant de Paris," he was so excited that he began making notes in the dark, and then went home and wrote "The Hapless Child." "The Willowdale Handcar" and other cliffhangers derive from movies by D. W. Griffith. The moors murder case in England led to "The Loathsome Couple." For "The Raging Tide: or, The Black Doll's Imbroglio," he drew an impish inkblot named Figbash (inspired by Max Ernst), and then years later produced a Figbash alphabet book. In his books, he acted as his own scenic and costume designer and typographer. He believed in hand lettering, even drawing the Library of Congress number in his books. In addition to "Dracula," Mr. Gorey's work has been the subject of many theatrical revues, including "Gorey Stories," "Amphigorey" and "Tinned Lettuce." In recent years a series of revues were done on Cape Cod for limited audiences, with the author supervising as director. One friend regularly supplied him with dreams. Mr. Gorey always insisted that he never used his own, which were "grandiose architectural dreams" and occasionally horror movies. Late in life he was troubled by insomnia, awake in the dark of night thinking Gorey thoughts. Last year he published a new Christmas story, "The Headless Bust," subtitled "A Melancholy Meditation on the False Millennium." In a variation on a previous book, "The Haunted Tea-Cosy," Edmund Gravel (the Recluse of Lower Spigot) and the Bahumbug (a pear-shaped insect with six limbs) embarked on a disaster-prone journey through the village of Godly Wot. After phantasmal adventures, the author concludes: They saw it was about to come: The end of the millennium, So find themselves perforce to be Into another century. Once when he was asked why he wrote so much about murder and other forms of violence, Mr. Gorey answered: "Well, I don't know. I guess I'm interested in real life."

COPYRIGHT 2000 BY THE NEW YOUR TIMES COMPANY

On Gorey

"Many of Edward Gorey's most fervent devotees think he's

a) English

b) Dead

Actually, he has never so much as visited either place. But his work has imprinted itself on the American consciousness as something from long ago and far away."

- The New Yorker

Footnote: It will be obvious to those who know of Gorey that this quote was not written in recent times. For those who don't know him, I shall clarify that he has not managed to visit the shores of England. Go figure...

Meet the Author, Edward Gorey

EDWARD GOREY (1925 - 2000)

I have since decided to add Edward Gorey to my collection of rare books. I have been concentrating my efforts on such authors as; Bram Stoker, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe and Margaret Atwood.

At the moment I have three of Goreys wonderful, yet quirky little books. One is a first edition but the others are later copies which I bought just for the sake of owning anything by Edward Gorey. I also prefer to have some newer editions for my reading enjoyment as I do so worry while reading some of my more collectible books.

I remember the day we met, or should I say I stumbled upon Gorey's work. I picked up a later edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula at Half Price Books in Capital Hill. After arriving home I noticed that the book had some wonderful illustrations throughout, these were done by Edward Gorey, of course.

I then did some research and found that Edward Gorey has quite the cult following. With his strangely enticing characters, dark depictions of life and his macabre humour I had no choice but to be enthralled by him.

Just a taste of Goreyography:

"A is for Amy who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clara who wasted away. D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh..." from The Gashlycrumb Tinies.