Edmund Wilson (1895-1972), the prominent literary critic and author, used to spend his summers in a family home in the little town of Talcottville (pop. 80) in upstate New York. Living 40 miles away in Utica (not exactly the “neighbor” that the title implies), author Richard Costa got to know him during the last nine years of Wilson’s life. Costa’s memoir recounts their relationship and offers modest insight into Wilson’s personality and viewpoints. Their relationship was not an intimate one and their interactions were infrequent (on two occasions, more than a year passed between their conversations). However, the two stayed in touch by mail, and maintained a sporadic friendship for nearly a decade.

Wilson comes across as an unusual and complex man. Physically, he was short, plump, and balding, with a high voice and an odd, wheezy laugh. Costa found him caring, sensitive, intelligent, and erudite; yet the man also appears to be opinionated, with a sharp tongue and an ability to put away prodigious quantities of alcohol. At the time of Costa's memoir, he was married to his fifth wife. He was well- read, but only up to a point; he considered no modern writers to be worthy of his attention. As Costa found, there were major gaps in his reading experience: he’d never read Cervantes, for example, and had no interest in Spanish literature. Wilson had had financial worries for many years, reflecting his work as a free-lance journalist and his ongoing problems with the Internal Revenue Service. (He had neglected to pay income taxes for over a decade). He liked performing magic tricks; and he was unable to drive a car (and had to depend on his housekeeper and neighbors in order to get around). Costa notes an odd coincidence: the inability to drive a car was shared by Edmund Wilson with such literary figures as Ray Bradbury, Evelyn Waugh, and Orson Welles. How curious!

Clearly Costa admired Wilson greatly, and basked in their friendship; in fact, the reader gets as much insight into Costa's personality and career as Wilson's. This book and Costa’s A Visit with Somerset Maugham, indicates that he was easily star-struck by literary figures, and thrilled by his occasional opportunities to meet them. In any case, I enjoyed reading of their conversations about HG Wells, Scott Fitzgerald, Somerset Maugham, Malcolm Lowry, and others in the literary world; and I appreciated Costa’s perspective on his enigmatic subject. Readers interested in Edmund Wilson may enjoy this modest work, although it is admittedly superficial and written by an admirer who did not know him intimately.

Coda. Despite Costa’s complimentary and affectionate portrayal, I get an impression of Edmund Wilson that is less than favorable. Wilson struck me as highly opinionated, a literary snob who pretended to know more than he claimed, and an intellectual dilettante who’d made a living critiquing the work of others, while dabbling in diverse subjects that caught his fancy. Perhaps that’s an unfair impression; it’s admittedly based on meager information. I have a biography of Wilson on my reading list, and will be glad to gain a broader view of the man.

Readers who admire the writings of Somerset Maugham will be interested in a few revelations. Wilson (who had published a devastating review of a Maugham novel in 1946) admitted to Costa that he’d never read any of Maugham’s major novels. This admission is significant, given his dismissal of Maugham’s work as “trashy,” as well as a conversation in this book (page 11) in which Wilson pretended to be familiar with Maugham’s Cakes and Ale. Wilson’s antipathy towards Maugham is visceral, and beyond reason. Costa noted that Maugham was still going strong at the age of ninety. “The old scoundrel,” blurted out Wilson, “that sort of writer goes on forever.” (Did he resent Maugham's great fame and the fortune he'd earned from his writing?) Another revelation comes from Wilson’s denial of a story told by Wilmon Menard in his The Two Worlds of W. Somerset Maugham. Menard had reported meeting Maugham at a cocktail party at Max Beerbohm’s villa in Rapallo (Italy). Maugham (Menard claimed) was sulking because Max told him that Wilson would be there too. When Costa asked Wilson about the story, Wilson denied having been in Rapallo anywhere near that time. Costa, having previously exposed Menard’s book as fraudulent, considered the Rapallo story to be another one of Menard’s fabrications.

Finally, as someone interested in the (Nobel- Prize winning) writer Sinclair Lewis, I enjoyed the following anecdote. It involves Mark Schorer, who wrote a large biography of Lewis that trivialized the writer and had a major, negative effect on Lewis' reputation that lasts to this day. As Wilson tells it, as he and his wife were dining at a restaurant, Schorer (who was on the Berkeley faculty) came over to their table, and kept hanging there, reluctant to leave. According to Wilson, “finally he came out with it. Had Wilson read his biography of Sinclair Lewis? ‘I told Schorer that as a matter of fact I had, and I thought it much too long.’ Schorer kept mumbling something about wondering why Sinclair Lewis thought he was somebody when he wasn’t. I suspect Schorer wondered that because he thinks he’s somebody and isn’t.” Wilson was telling the tale, of course, which gives one an accurate sense of where he ranked himself, and his certainty of his qualifications to do such ranking. ( )

I had occasion to be in the home in Talcottville about 20 years ago. Talcottville is 20 miles from our home. It is not occupied, but its caretaker who was doing some plastering work on our home showed us his work in the Talcottville home. There still, on the windows, are the diamond-stylus etched verse, etc. from the literary lights of Wilson's day. Fascinating.

This led to reading "Upstate" which I really enjoyed, not only because of Wilson's narrative skill, but because the places and names of the region are familiar. These years later I was fortunate to meet Dick Costa who now in his 90's is a neighbor of my father-in-law living in a senior independent living complex near Utica. Costa, who is a charming man, mentioned his book about Wilson which I was able to obtain through a used book site. The book presents an intimate view of Wilson by Costa who socialized and corresponded with him for the last ten years of Wilson's life. He presents a view of the man that is not seen in the scholarly major profiles published since his death. Costa was a journalist and English professor so his book combines a journalist's observations with literary "shop talk" with Wilson. (The book will have you accessing references frequently as it recounts their discussions of literary figures little known or forgotten today.) Costa is a scholar of H.G. Wells and W. Somerset Maughn and the reaction of Wilson to these authors is fascinating.

Anyone interested in Wilson, and a first-hand depiction of him, will like this book. It's not in print and don't bother with Amazon as they want a fortune for used copies. I went to Abe books who has a number of copies all at reasonable prices. ( )