Once upon a time — or as the French say, il était une fois — I spent a summer in Paris as the guest of a friend of my father’s. I had just finished up a stint as an intern at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and took advantage of an offer from Anne-Marie to crash on the sofa at her place. Her flat was near the Maison de la Radio and had a private garden, a rarity in Paris then. The on dit was that she had once been Dad’s girlfriend, but I think that was just idle gossip. This woman admired my father, but only as a friend. The apartment was well-situated in the posh 16th arrondissement near Passy. The Métro stop there would become famous later on in the movie Last Tango in Paris.

I used to go out often at night when I was there, take the Métro across the Seine, and back again, to party in all the hot spots of Paris. Perhaps the most sizzling spot in those days was Club Sept, founded by Fabrice Emaer. Not quite a gay bar, Club Sept attracted an exotic, diverse crowd of celebrities, beauties, rock stars, dance divas and some of the international Warhol Factory set. It was the heyday of the disco era, with a hint of the punk revolution waiting in the wings. We listened to Grace Jones, Donna Summer and Patrick Juvet.

My memory of those late, late nights is a bit hazy. And not entirely reliable. I was a heavy drinker then and often stumbled back to Anne-Marie’s in a drunken stupor, or worse a blackout. Very often I did not have enough money to pay for a cab and the Métro closed in the wee hours of the morning. It was not unusual for me to walk home, a distance of many, many miles. Sometimes if I got lucky, I’d hitch a ride. They say that God loves drunks and fools, and I was both in those days. I never had any problems on the streets of Paris. I was 20 and it was 1977.

Anne-Marie knew little of my nightly escapades. She worked in the airline business and was often away for several days. I confined my worst excesses to those times. One night I slipped out to Club Sept and tied one on. In between dancing ecstatically to Donna Summer’s latest hit and cruising the lounge, I hooked up with a handsome gadabout named Joel LeBon, a fixture of the Warhol fringe. My memory here is full of holes, but I seem to remember him introducing me to one of his friends, Tan Giudicelli, an Asian fashion designer who later made a name for himself in perfume. (Tan, seen below with Tyen, shot by Helmut Newton.)

I had stumbled into a stylish and très branché crowd of nouveaux incroyables and merveilleuses, the demi-gods and goddesses of the demi-monde. With them were Edwige, a stunning blonde beauty with a reputation for always being at the right place at the right time. No party was complete without her. And Paquita Paquin, a piquant meneuse de jeu with enough energy to light up all of Paris. (Edwige, left, below with LouLou de la Falaise; Paquita and ami, right.)

Sitting against the wall on a banquette, nearly lost amidst the Gauloises and Gitanes smoke, was a shy young man named Philippe Morillon. Smiling like the Cheshire Cat, he offered me a drink and a cigarette. I used to smoke in those days, sometimes as much as three packs a day. But it was just an affectation. I rarely inhaled. It was merely a way to meet people and to achieve instant camaraderie. The whiskeys and Coke helped a lot too. I can’t recall if Philippe and I danced together. I seem to remember him always sitting on that banquette, soaking up the atmosphere. Although he did cover the city’s backstreets with unique flair. (Philippe, below, with les poubelles.)

These were heady times.  I was in awe of all the famous people popping in and out. I recall that same night seeing Michael York there with some glamorous woman. Was it Catherine Deneuve? Or Anita Ekberg? And a singer named Thierry LeLuron, who was all the rage at the time. (Seen below in a wig with Randy Jones and Felipe Rose of the Village People.)

I mention all this because I had unwittingly stumbled upon a small cadre of hip trendsetters who would come to define the nightlife of Paris in the 70s and 80s. They were the Zazous of the moment. My only ticket in was my youth and my ego, and the energy to keep up with them. And perhaps my clumsy American naiveté, which some of them thought was cute.

Philippe and I soon became intimate friends. A talented photographer and artist (self-portrait, above), he had a large, rambling apartment on the Boulevard Sébastopol in an old Belle Epoque building with one of those typically Parisian staircases and a rickety old elevator. To me it was the essence of la vie de bohème, everything I had dreamed Paris would be. It was a far cry from the rather humdrum bourgeois ordinariness of Anne-Marie’s neighborhood near Passy.

I’d visit Philippe as often as possible to watch him paint, sketch or develop his startling photographs. I seem to recall that he had his own darkroom, but it might have just been the bathroom. He took a lot of photographs of me, only one of which I still have (the one at the top of this post). No matter what time of day or night it was, the flat was a hub of activity. Models, actresses, designers and fellow artists would come in and out. My head was constantly spinning from the excitement of it all, and the pulsating rhythm of a vibrant disco song which he played constantly, Simon Peter. I vainly began to envision myself as part of the Warhol crowd. I was 20 and it was 1977.

One night Anne-Marie overheard me talking to Philippe on the telephone and suggested that I invite him over for dinner. She was a great cook, so I didn’t hesitate. Philippe showed up and the scene soon resembled one of those interrogations a father might impose on the date who’d come to pick up his daughter for the prom. Anne-Marie grilled Philippe about all aspects of his life. I could tell instantly that she did not approve. Not because Philippe wasn’t attractive or charming, but because she sensed that he belonged to this other world of artists and bohemians. Perhaps she was just jealous since I had found a new mentor, one who didn’t mind if I smoked, drank to excess, or went out dancing until six in the morning.

A week or so later, Anne-Marie had to go visit friends in Dordogne. She said I could stay in the apartment alone as long as I promised not to have any visitors. I told her not to worry. But the minute she got in her car and drove off, I was on the phone to Philippe inviting him and his circle of friends over for a party. I wanted to show off the garden in back. A few hours later, as I was all alone, and busy preparing for the party, the door bell rang. I opened it and was startled to find Joe Dallesandro standing there. He was by himself. I had never met him before and had not invited him. It was like a visit from an angel or one of those deus ex machinas you read about in ancient mythology. He just appeared out of nowhere.

I showed him in and we proceeded to talk for an hour or so on our own. It turned out that Philippe had invited him. You have to remember that at this time Joe Dallesandro was at the height of his fame. He had starred in several of Andy Warhol’s most infamous films and had recently headlined Paul Morrissey’s two horror remakes: Dracula and Frankenstein. To me sitting next to him was more exciting than meeting the Beatles or Queen Elizabeth. He showed me his tattoo, “Little Joe”. He was the perfect gentleman, making complimentary remarks about the apartment. I was so taken aback by his sophisticated, gracious manner that I fumbled to make conversation. For once, I was tongue-tied. All I could think of to do was to open a bottle of Anne-Marie’s prized Champagne.

Soon Philippe and his gang arrived. I’m not sure if Edwige and Paquita were there, it’s all pretty much a blur. I had opened Anne-Marie’s tins of caviar too. Someone commandeered the kitchen and cooked up a meal. We took full advantage of the garden and dined al fresco. Afterward there were countless dishes, glasses, demitasse coffee cups, wine bottles, and silverware strewn across the apartment. There wasn’t time to clean up after the meal since we all climbed into a cab and headed off to Régine’s where we continued to live it up and to drink and dance. (Mick Jagger, en masque, below.)

Somehow we ended up at La Main Bleue, one of the racier discos of the era, which was out in the banlieues and catered to a trendy black crowd. Unfortunately, Philippe ended up not feeling well that night, so I took him back to his apartment, tucked him into bed and then shamelessly went back to the Bronx, a leather bar up the block from Club Sept.

I picked up some very sexy guy who had a motorcycle and we went back to Anne-Marie’s apartment. We stumbled through the debris of the earlier party, threw off our clothes, leaving half of them on the floor. I remember he placed his motorcycle helmet on one of the sculptures in the hall. Then we fell into bed in a Mistral of torrid sex. I was 20 and it was 1977.

Through the pounding in my head, a couple hours later, I heard the familiar click of a key in the front door. I jumped out of bed, trying not to wake my trick, and grabbed a towel to cover myself. I poked my head into the living room where an elderly Portuguese cleaning lady stood staring at the mess around her with her jaw just about hitting the floor. She turned to look at me and then screamed. She ran out the door, slamming it behind her. It was just like a scene out of a movie.

I had hell to pay when Anne-Marie returned from the country (a bit earlier than she had planned). And my late night excursions from then on were curtailed. I could have moved in with Philippe I guess. But I felt I owed Anne-Marie something for her hospitality. And I was worried what she might tell my father. I was still very much under my father’s thumb. I was 20 and it was 1977,

As for Philippe, we stayed friends. I never told him about the beau mec on the motorcycle. Although considering how small that clique was, I’m sure he heard about it soon enough. The following summer, I returned and he introduced me to Le Palace, which Fabrice had opened in March 1978 with a gala concert given by Grace Jones. Located in a lavish theatre, Le Palace was a rival to Studio 54, but even more glamorous and scandalous.

I went back to Le Palace on several more occasions and watched with awe, admiration and disbelief the parade of fabulous cockeyed creatures who roosted there. Eventually I returned home and to school. During my junior year at Yale, I was affecting the punk look, glimmers of which I had picked up at Le Palace. I wore a safety pin in my tie. I thought I was the next cover of Interview. (Billy Idol, below.)

In time, Philippe and I fell out of touch. I visited him the following summer, but some of the magic was missing. He’d been busy making a name for himself in the worlds of fashion, design and photography. I was just a college student on summer vacation. Plus I had begun to be interested in other things besides dancing and the glitterati. I was studying music and had aspirations of becoming an opera singer. It didn’t serve me well to be out every night smoking and drinking. Or so I told myself. But the truth is that the voice lessons were my way of keeping myself in check. I was already in the throes of severe alcoholism and suffered many debilitating attacks of despair during that period. I nearly drowned myself one night in the sea at Deauville. I never told anyone.

Later, after I got sober and returned to Paris with a new attitude, I made a point of looking up Philippe again. He had become an editor at Vogue and later an art director at Egoiste, one of the most famous magazines of the era. And he’d published a book, Ultra Lux, a collection of his paintings.

As luck would have it, I got an assignment in the mid-80s from Vanity Fair to interview Karl Lagerfeld, as part of my “Conspicuous Coffee Table” columns. I suggested that Philippe do the photographs. We reunited at Lagerfeld’s palatial home. The three of us proceeded to have one of the most hilarious and fun-filled interview sessions I’ve ever had. And the pictures that Philippe took of Lagerfeld and his “coffee table” (which was nothing more than a pile of expensive art books stacked on the floor) were magnificent. (Lagerfeld, below, shot earlier on the town by Philippe.)

I’ve kept up with Philippe off and on over the ensuing decades. But it is only recently thanks to Facebook that we’ve reconnected on any significant level. It was there that I learned of his latest release. Une dernière danse? 1970-1980 Journal d’une décennie, (The Last Dance? Journal of a Decade) — a retrospective of his photographs from the 70s and 80s, the apogee of Le Palace. It was just published in May. Karl Lagerfeld wrote the introduction. I’m not sure it is available yet in the United States, but it’s been garnering a lot of attention in France.

Gazing at these glittering images, the past comes back to life. The exotic and erotic. The maddening and the madcap. The poseurs and the provocateurs. It all rushes back, like flashes of lightning illuminating a dark night sky. It’s as if the party never ended. As if AIDS had never reared its ugly head, quelling our lusts and louche behavior. Many of the people featured in these pages are no longer with us. Fabrice died in 1983; Thierry Le Luron in 1986. Joel LeBon as well. Some have become mere footnotes in the pantheon of fame. Others have gone on to bigger success. Edwige and Paquita continue to shine. (Yves St Laurent, below.)

One thing is constant. The thrill of the party, the joy of seeing and being seen, of dressing up and showing off. Philippe Morillon has captured the essence of those wild, youthful years. And for me, personally, he’s reopened the door to a marvelous moveable feast, a true remembrance of things past. I was 20 and it was 1977.

(Note: All photos courtesy of and copyright by Philippe Morillon, unless otherwise indicated.)

Of all the treasures I uncovered while exploring the vast contents of the Harry Ransom Center in Austin during my month-long sojourn in March, it was the Spud Johnson diaries that most captivated me. These journals are virtually unknown, but document the Taos art scene, as well as American gay life in the 30s and 40s, in a way I had never come across before.

The collection includes hundreds of photographs documenting Spud’s life in Taos. There are pictures of him posing with Frieda and D. H. Lawrence (anachronistically dressed in thick woolen suits in the desert); Mabel Dodge and Tony Luhan; young men like Haniel Long, Joel Lacey, Lucius Kutchin, artists Loren Mozley, John Goldmark, as well as local youths Rafael and Patricio who resemble models handpicked by Baron von Gloeden.

These documents are a fascinating window into the past, a reflection of lost innocence. The Spud Johnson papers are a gold mine for anyone curious about this period in American history, and yet, the collection does not seem yet to have been fully discovered or exposed. (You can read more about him here at Lasting Impressions, from which I’ve borrowed the photo, below, showing Spud at work on his press).

I actually had first heard of Spud Johnson ages ago back when I was obsessed with anything to do with D. H. Lawrence, especially his days recovering from tuberculosis in Taos, New Mexico. As a college student, enthralled with Lady Chatterley’s Lover and the like, I read all about Lawrence’s life among the pueblos and his wacky circle of friends there, in particular Mabel Dodge Luhan, the heiress who had rocked the world with her torrid love affair with John Reed, then settled down with an American Indian in Taos.

One of her closest friends was a little known poet and publisher, Walter Willard Johnson, nicknamed Spud, who occasionally put out a much-admired journal called Laughing Horse. A recent book about that venture, Spud Johnson and Laughing Horse, by Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall, describes him as “the aesthetic and intellectual conscience of Taos.” But it reveals very little about Spud Johnson’s personal life.

I found out a bit more on my own. He was born on June 3, 1897 in Mount Vernon, Illinois but grew up in Greeley, Colorado. His father John Smith Johnson was from Fredonia, Kentucky and had built up a successful lumber business. His mother, (nee) Susan Wiggington, was also originally from Kentucky. Spud had a brother Van Elbert and a sister Helen Gladys. His cousin Lila Wheeler was adopted by the family and raised as a sister. From an early age, Walter was dubbed “Spud” by his family. In fact, that is the name he used on his Social Security card. He studied at Colorado State Teacher’s College in 1916, where he wrote for the school paper and worked as a cub reporter for the Greeley newspaper. He then attended the University of Colorado in Boulder, and found work at the Pueblo Chieftain where he apprenticed in journalism.

Eager to broaden his horizons, he moved to the University of California in Berkeley. There, with friends, he started up a small press pamphlet, Laughing Horse, known for its biting and flippant tone, which immediately raised the hackles of university authorities by opposing certain school programs. Spud became the companion of one of his poetry teachers, Witter Bynner (below), a noted writer who also taught at UCLA. Bynner helped Spud find a job as a secretary at the esteemed but highly secretive Bohemian Club.

By 1922 the two traveled to Santa Fe, NM, where Spud met D. H. Lawrence through Bynner and traveled with the celebrated author and his wife Frieda to Mexico. In a short time he had relocated with Bynner to Taos, the hub of a lively burgeoning literary scene, where he soon fell in with the indomitable Mabel Dodge Luhan, who’d first put Taos on the map. (Mabel, Frieda and Dorothy Brett, below.)

Spud became Mabel’s private secretary and settled down there permanently. He eventually built a small adobe home, La Placita, where he lived for 40 years until his death in 1968. It later became a popular, if funky, bed and breakfast, The Laughing Horse Inn, which now appears to be closed.

In those early years in the 20s, Spud wrote constantly and his work was published in Poetry, Pan, Echo, Palms, and The New Republic. Rydal Press published a selection of his works in 1935, entitled Horizontal Yellow. Later he would toil in Manhattan for a year at The New Yorker, penning pithy “Talk of the Town” pieces. He preferred the Southwest and hurried back to Taos.

But it was primarily as a friend of the famous that Spud achieved lasting notoriety. He appears sporadically as a character in books by Lawrence and Mabel Luhan and Dorothy Brett, and was frequently sought out by visitors who relished his connections as well as his hospitality. He was an enigma to many. Lady Dorothy Brett wrote of him: “There is something oddly Chinese in the narrow shape of the face, of the features, that are more chiseled bones than flesh. He might be a Chinese ascetic from some old, old Mandarin family: the dark, smooth hair should end in a pig-tail, I think to myself. And not only to look at, is he Chinese to me: he has also something of their reserve; he keeps his inner life hidden away, carefully guarded.”

That inner life was not hidden in his date books and journals. These diaries, carefully preserved at the Harry Ransom Center, cover a wide turf, starting off in the 1910s, and contain a startling “Declaration of Independence” in 1918, which sounds oddly like a defiant statement of coming out. Several pages are torn out of the diary in those early years, but as they progress they become more confident and far more candid. Spud details his affair with Myron Brinig, the now nearly forgotten writer who at the time was ranked alongside Thomas Wolfe. Brinig was living with his boyfriend Cady Wells at the time but that did not preclude several jumps in the hay with Spud which the latter described as “bedroom athletics.” He seemed to genuinely love Myron, below, his “ape-like” “Roumanian Jew.”

Spud’s explicit diary entries are extremely daring for their day and an invaluable guide for any scholar of so-called “queer studies” looking into the mind-set of homosexual life at the time. Despite the prevailing prudishness, Spud pulls no punches and reveals all. Some of his observations are campy and self-revealing, primarily plaintive regrets that he wasn’t promiscuous enough, and had failed to pick up a stray boy on the street. The picture he paints is one of a very active and amusing gay scene of transients and trend-setters, but also a lonely life of yearning and regret.

In August 1934 Spud describes vividly having sex in the lobby of the Sagebrush Inn with a young man who worked there. Not long after he reveals seducing one of Mabel’s native American cowboys, “topping” him in a tepee during a camping trip. Lust became an obsession for him: he keeps thinking of “white-limbed boys and dark-skinned lads” and “muscles that get hard when you touch them.” (Below, Bynner and two local youths, Patricio and Rafael, from New Mexico.)

The diaries reveal a world of endless intrigue, drunken debauches, and constant fights with female admirers such as Alexandra Fichen, but also of boredom. This was before television and evenings were usually devoted to listening to radio, or spent at local dances, in bars or playing games like Anagrams and Charades or Solitaire. Spud expends a great deal of energy trying to “vamp” the local boys. He compares his notes to a schoolgirl’s diary, especially after a failed attempt to pick up a drunken pal at a dance. A few weeks later, he yearns for a friend who instead has “hot pants” for some “tramp”.

What comes through most in these diaries is Spud’s sweet sense of humor. He’s provocative, such as the time he threw flowers at the feet of a native Indian boy he fancied as he passes by during a parade. Much of the time, Spud generously takes in strays and younger men who are just passing through town and treats them with respect and an almost maternal care. But he clearly relishes his privacy and few of them stay very long.

By the mid 30s, he asks why he has no lovers? “I know I’m no longer either young or attractive, and yet everyone seems to like me.” But soon he is befriended and bedded by Forbes Cheston, a wealthy Englishman who would later become a dominant figure in AA. There’s also the episode in 1937 when he picks up a “strangely Aztec” bar boy and has wild sex with him under the moonlight behind a chapel, adding characteristically, “He practically nailed me to the old church wall.”

The diaries, when not revealing the gay subterranean set, also revel in the literary life in New York which he visits in 1934. He hangs out with Carl Van Vechten and Effie Stettheimer, above. He describes Virgil Thomson, above, in unflattering terms as pudgy with pop eyes and a high voice. “Didn’t like him very much.” Driving back to Taos, he picks up a hitchhiker with such bad body odor that he has to drive with the windows wide open. All of his road trips are sagas of overheated water tanks, flat tires and blow-outs.

Patrick White, above, the noted Australian author, visited with Spud in the late 30s and began an intense romantic affair with him on the eve of World War Two. Some of his love letters are quoted in Spud’s diaries and are very touching. But ultimately White met the man he would spend the rest of his life with and moved on, never looking back. Spud was left once again alone.

Max Evans, the author of the recent novel Bluefeather Fellini, describes him: “Spud had a cadaverous face, even in his youth. This made his brownish black eyes prominent indeed. At first glance, Spud’s eyes said they had seen too much and done too little about it. They could be interested, amused, and in agreement, with moods changing so fast that the projections could be lost on the viewer.”

In time the diaries change tone and are less graphic. This is most likely due to Spud’s advancing age and his busy work schedule. By 1948 he admits having no delusions about making a name for himself as a writer. By then he still had only published Horizontal Yellow. He seems to have accepted his fate as being a local “gadfly” and even published a local column under that name. Later diaries document trips he took to Mexico with Georgia O’Keeffe where they met Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and a journey to Europe with the painter Earl Stroh in which he finally met Alice B. Toklas, below.

By the 60s, Spud talks ominously about the “hazards of fraternization.” He is alone and seems to prefer it that way. In his later years, Spud, who wrote regularly on the arts and cultural life in New Mexico for El Crepusculo, became increasingly eccentric. He affected a series of obvious toupees, one of which looked like a dead skunk. Or he might sport a beret and smoke an elaborate pipe. He would sometimes dress as a monk in robes and ride a donkey through the streets, the “St. Francis of Taos.”

His thin wizened features gave him the air of a Renaissance saint. He’d sit in the local square selling books out of a makeshift cart he designed out of an old bicycle. The townspeople adored him and treated him like a living monument. He took up painting and was often seen outside capturing landscapes with his brush. He used his columns to fight over-development and to decry the mindless tearing down of trees to build more parking lots. He was ahead of his time in that regard and no doubt the changes to Taos and Santa Fe must have been difficult to witness having seen what it was like when it was first discovered by the cognoscenti in the early 20s.

And yet Spud never lost his enthusiasm for the place and championed the arts until his last breath. In fact, an art show he was organizing at the time he died was turned into a retrospective celebrating his career. His obituary appeared prominently in numerous newspapers. He had outlived all his friends and achieved a measure of renown all his own. And luckily he left us his collection of photographs and diaries which are a revealing and priceless glimpse into a fascinating lost era.

What’s in a name? Plenty, apparently, if it happens to be Penelope.

It may seem silly to judge a person by her first name, but if the appellation is Penelope one has good reason to pay attention. Especially if she’s written a book. Be sure to crack it open and start reading with passion and pleasure. I’ve rarely encountered a Penelope who was not adept with a pen. Although, surprisingly, they are few and far between.

When I ran my bookstore, Brooks Books, above, a few years back in Tivoli, NY, I had a special section designed specifically for authors named Penelope. It was not necessarily one of the more popular spots. Few people even knew it existed. Most customers came in asking for certain authors by their last names. “You got any King?” I would hear ad nauseum. As if the only purpose of a bookstore was to provide readers with yet another outlet for another novel by that prolific prince of darkness. I could always tell those customers were only stopping in to get out of the rain or to find a place to park their kids for a few minutes while they went to the ATM, or bought a beer at the deli. They never purchased any books. And not because I didn’t have any Stephen King. I had loads of Stephen King. But I didn’t have a first edition of Carrie which is all these type of people long for. It’s the white trash equivalent of finding a copy of Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe at a yard sale.

Then there were the clients who asked for the latest tome by David Sedaris. I have to admit I’d never heard of David Sedaris when I opened my shop. But after just a week, I knew every book the man had ever written. I had to explain to these prospective buyers that I ran an antiquarian bookshop and people did not part with their David Sedarises, no matter how much they were worth. They were simply too invaluable. Try the Beinecke Library at Yale, I’d say. I’m sure they have the collected works of David Sedaris, all signed, in “mint” condition, unread.

Same with Joyce Carol Oates. I can’t tell you how many times people would lumber in and demand a copy of her latest output. I can’t tell you because in the five years I actually ran a shop, not one person ever asked for a book by Joyce Carol Oates. And she wrote so many of them that one would have to open a separate wing just to house them all. And one would have to be open 24/7 to keep up with the publishing schedule.

Then there were the Sybille Bedford types. “Got anything other than Jigsaw?” they’d ask, with a puzzled expression, stepping gingerly out of the rain (it rained a lot even back then). “No,” I’d say. “Not yet. I had A Compass Error last week, but it seems to be misplaced. Someone must have pilfered it.” They’d wander over to the garden section and peruse an old Gertrude Jekyll book. I could always tell if they were serious connoisseurs of landscape literature if they pronounced her last name right. It rhymes with “fecal”.

Occasionally someone would come in and mumble under his breath, as if entering an adult emporium, “Got any Updike?” I’d then show him to an entire wall of books that no one had even thumbed through. He’d shake his head, mutter to himself, look right and left, then say that he’d tried to read The Centaur, but just couldn’t get into it. He’d usually leave with a copy of the local Chronogram, which was left in a pile for free by the door. Every now and then, I’d sell Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, but only if it still had a dust jacket and wasn’t soiled.

On rare occasions, a customer would sail in — usually a female pushing a baby carriage (very often without a baby in it) — and inquire: “Do you have….the latest…Prose?” I knew who they meant — Francine Prose, of course. She taught at Bard nearby and had quite a following. I kept her in a special section marked “Prose and Kahns” — The latter being works by Alfred Kahn. But inevitably these Prosians would already have the book I had in stock and would curse loudly as they jammed the stroller in the French doors on their way out.

The one book I was guaranteed to sell every week was The Da Vinci Code. People would snarl and say they had heard it was crap, but they’d buy it anyway. Just so they had something in their hands to prove to their spouses or housemates that they hadn’t wasted the entire day browsing through junk shops and used book stores.

I guess I took a kind of perverse pleasure in contriving a corner in my shop devoted to my favorite authors named Penelope. I have to admit, the idea didn’t start off as being quite so specific. The notion grew out of one book in particular: The Bookshop. I don’t know how I first came to read this little magnum opus. I think I was riffling through an old copy of the New York Times Magazine, or was it the Book Review? I stumbled across an article by Mira Stout on a fascinating British lady named Penelope Fitzgerald. I used to know Mira at Vanity Fair in the mid-80s, back when Tina Brown edited it and it still lay some claim to having snob appeal. Mira and I were fellow Contributing Reporters, although I think she got paid more. I read the piece primarily to find out more about what Mira was up to. We both got let go around the same time. She, I learned, was in London leading what appeared to be a teddibly civilized existence among the British cognoscenti. I was jealous. But all those feelings soon vanished as I read her wonderful essay. This Penelope Fitzgerald sounded like a writer I could sink my teeth into.

So the next time I found myself in a used bookstore (I frequented them all back then, when there were actually hundreds to choose from), I asked the owner if he had a copy of The Bookshop. He looked at me as if I’d asked him for the key to the bathroom. Bookstore owners hate giving out those keys. And now I know why. The first time I did it at my own store, when a customer came in and begged me to let him use the toilet, I had to open all the windows even though it was the dead of winter. There was frost on my Thackeray. But I guess I was lucky this time because the fellow did indeed have a copy of The Bookshop. It was only $40, he said. A First Edition. And it wasn’t even signed! So I went home and ordered a paperback from Amazon.

What can I say about this extraordinary book other than it changed my life? First of all, Penelope Fitzgerald didn’t write it until she was over 60. She’d hardly even been a writer up until then. Her first book in 1975 was a biography of Edward Burne-Jones. Then she penned a mystery in 1977, The Golden Child. It was a moderate success. The Bookshop came out a year later, and garnered raves. It’s a wickedly funny — some might say droll, but they’d be wrong — account of her adventures opening a bookstore in Suffolk, in the countryside of England. Based on her own experience, the novel unfolds in a sure, steady stream of precise, subtle, penetrating prose. The tiny thumbnail sketches of local residents are as good as any caricature by Cruikshank or Hogarth. The plot twists and turns in unexpected ways, making the word unpredictable seem cliched. There’s even a ghost to give it some color, although it hardly needs any more of that. I have rarely read a book that I found so immediately pleasurable. It’s also a brilliant warning against anyone who has ever fantasized about opening his or her own bookshop. But it’s a disguised warning. One is so enchanted by the concept that one overlooks the cautionary tale at its core.

The immediate effect is to inspire one to go out and do that very thing as soon as possible. Which I ended up doing. And wouldn’t you know it? My experience owning a bookshop was almost identical to hers. The resistance from locals. The gossip swirling. The logistical nightmares and disasters (have you ever tried to get the smell of skunk out of a leather bound volume?) The lack of sales. The ingrates. She hit the nail right on the head. If only I’d taken her admonition seriously — or never read the book at all — I’d be a rich man today.

I’ve given The Bookshop as a gift to countless friends. And I sold so many copies at the store that I was constantly scouring eBay for cheap copies to line my shelves. I’m not sure others shared my enthusiasm. Penelope Fitzgerald is something of an acquired taste. But not long after Mira Stout’s comely ode appeared, another article about Penelope popped up. This time in The New Yorker, or was it New York? Arthur Lubow wrote it. Another friend of mine, Arthur did a better job of telling the basic facts of this curious author’s life. But some of the bloom had come off the rose, for me, that is, because by then she was established as a major writer. The darling of the literati. Everyone knew about her and some of the fun of being in the know evaporated.

That didn’t stop me from reading her other books, No Means of Escape, Human Voices, The Gates of Angels, At Freddie’s, and even The Knox Brothers, her toothy exegesis on her religiously-inclined forebears, a pride of literary lions. Each subsequent book of hers was unique. No two alike. To read The Blue Flower, about the German poet Novalis and his passion for a 12-year-old girl (and which won the National Book Critic’s Award), right on the heels of The Bookshop is to wonder if Penelope Fitzgerald really existed at all or was she like Penelope Ashe (authoress of Naked Came the Stranger) a mishmash, a composite of writers, a scribe by committee?

How could one person write two so disarmingly different works of art? But there’s no mistaking the mark of genius. Fitzgerald’s use of language is completely her own no matter what the subject being surveyed. I particularly enjoyed Offshore, an autobiographical novel about a group of misfits living on house boats on the Thames. It’s gripping without any trussed-up suspense, poignant without wry manipulation, haunting without any real horror. It’s simply true-to-life.

Thus was born my Penelope obsession and shrine. I started off with as many of Fitzgerald’s books as I could find. Then somehow — perhaps by subconscious design — I placed a copy of The Pumpkin Eater, by Penelope Mortimer, above, on the same shelf. I have to confess I hadn’t read it. I’d seen the movie with Anne Bancroft that was based on it. I knew Mortimer’s work from other films as well. Who can ever forget Bunny Lake Is Missing, which she wrote with her husband, John Mortimer, best known for his Rumpole of the Bailey series?

Penelope Mortimer is actually a very interesting figure. Born Penelope Fletcher, in 1919, she had a somewhat difficult childhood, attending seven schools in seven years. She married the Reuters journalist Charles Dimont when she was 19. Her first novel was published in 1947. Two years later she married a young barrister, aka John Mortimer. The Mortimers soon became the hub of the swinging London set. The Pumpkin Eater came out in 1962 and put her on the map. As Penelope Mortimer evolved, she moved more into film criticism and wrote screenplays, memoirs and a biography of the Queen Mother. She died in 1999.

It wasn’t long before someone who worked in films commented on my growing Penelope shelf. She knew everyone in the business. We joked about other Penelopes. One named Cruz whom I learned was an actress. Another named Tree, a stunning model whom I recalled with relish from the 60s. This friend, who was an agent, had some good stories about her. And then there was Lady Penelope of Wangford, a stylish fashion plate, below, whose picture I found on the internet. We both agreed she was the quintessence of chic.

We wondered why there were so few famous Penelopes. It’s not a common name. But it should be, considering the source, the premier Penelope, the one who started it all. The faithful wife of Odysseus. Patience personified. The lonely weaver who loomed so large in literature. Come to think of it, Margaret Atwood wrote an homage to her: The Penelopiad. And let’s not forget the Natalie Wood film, Penelope, which is a cult classic, as are all movies with Natalie Wood in them. You can’t help but be charmed by someone as cute as that particular Penelope.

As my interest grew, I found some striking similarities within my Penelopesian war chest. First off, one has to be a British subject to hold any sway as a noted Penelope. Why this is true is a mystery to me. Perhaps it is part of the indomitable Anglo soul; that stiff upper lip thing. Penelopes by their very nature are patient, strong, unbending. One doesn’t think of them as sexpots, simply because of the quaint, almost melodic, resonance of their name. But invariably they have an innate feline appeal. Some like Penelope Neri write fashionably erotic historical romances such as Cherish the Night. Someone named Penelope Tremayne wrote Below The Tide, “the true story of a remarkably courageous woman.” Penelope Sassoon wrote Penelope in Moscow, which sounds like a pleasant romp. Penelope Dyan penned mysteries, including Caution Tape. Others like the very beautiful Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward are secret agents. Although Lady Penelope only exists in the realm of the imagination. She won’t be born until 2039.

It is almost de rigueur among Penelopes to be preternaturally versatile. Take for example Penelope Lively. I hadn’t read much of her work, but she was much in demand. So I dug around and came up with a handful of her books. Not so much to my taste, but very popular with my customers. And for a bookstore owner, any author who moves off the shelves, is a favorite author.

She was born in Cairo in 1933, as Penelope Low. She read history at Oxford, then married Jack Lively in 1957. Her first book, in 1970, was Astercote, a work for children. Her other books in that genre include The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, and A Stitch in Time. Her best known work might be Moon Tiger for which she won the Booker Prize in 1987. And Consequences. Or The Photograph.

I’m more inclined to pick up her non-fiction efforts, including A House Unlocked and Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived about her upbringing in Egypt.

Quite similar in many regards is Penelope Gilliatt, above, who wrote the brilliant 1971 screenplay for Sunday Bloody Sunday. Born in England, she attended Bennington College in the States and became the film critic of The New Yorker. I had copies of her novels, A State of Change and One By One, plus her screenplay at home (with groovy pix from the flick). It had always been one of my favorite films, back when you couldn’t open a book, magazine or turn on the TV without seeing Glenda Jackson.

I brought all of Gilliatt’s books in and added them to my growing, and soon to be groaning, Penelope shelf. In time, people began to notice the section. Someone quipped that it was a “panoply of Penelopes.” Emboldened, I sought out more. But other than Penelope Hobhouse, who is the queen of expensive gardening books, my cup ran dry. Aside from some lesser known, newish, authors: Penelope Holt and Farmer, there aren’t too many Penelopes out there penning away. An exception is Penelope Rowlands, who has just written a chic biography of the great fashion editor, Carmel Snow — A Dash of Daring. That’s one I need to add to my list.

A quick glance at IMDB, the Internet Movie Database, has led to a mysterious Penelope G. Knapp, originally from Rochester, then Chicago, who wrote a novel which became the 1919 film, The Broken Butterfly, starring Pauline Starke. It looks like a real tear-jerker.

Alas, not a single copy exists on the web. I wonder if it’s any good. I’d like to add it to my collection of books containing the word “Butterfly” in their titles. But that’s another post.