The Coaster Correspondence

VANITIES

More of the very expensive words of Edwin John Coaster, contributing editor

EDWIN COASTER

June 17, 2001 Dear Graydon: Just giving iou a heads-up that I :on't be available to :rite an~thing i'or V.P. this summer-I've taken a cottage at Smuglawn, the writers' colony in Vermont. As you've probably heard from the Ralberstams, Kate and I are on the outs, so it's in my best interest to get the hell out of Dodge. (A compromising situation involving a girl dishwasher at the lobster pound down the road, but I'll spare you the gory details.) An1.:a~,, no use drowning my sorrows, and to be irank, I'm actually kinda primed-last time I did the .`riters'colony thing, some 20-odd years ago, my nights were much busier than my daysi (Flashback: Joyce I.ia~nard. 1oonlight. Shinny-dipping. A rope s~:ing. Sigh.) "A little Minot a trois ith your coffee, Mr. Coaster?" Heh-heh. Bye. Best,

June 23, 2001 Dear Graydon: What was I thinking? It's horrible here~ Totally different from the old dads-everyone's younger than me and .~ux~ocatingly seli-serious. There's this one guy who looks like a dustman but grandly calls himself David Foster Wallace and ends his ever~ excruciating monologue by saying, "I shit you not." My next-door neighbor, Anne somebody-Beattie, Tyler, Proulx, not really sure, whichever one's face runs opposite mine on the Barnes & Noble bag-gives me grief about my pissing on the trees out back. And none of the Minots will put out-one of `em even ruins cocktail hour every night by reading aloud from her novel in progress, Hollow Egret, in which taxidermy serves as an allegory for incest. What the hell? In the old days we slept `til noon, put in about three hours of scrivening, and then it `as time for Pimm's Cups and nude charades with the Barthelmes. I gotta bolt. Can V.P. put me up at the Hudson hotel until Kate finds a ne~: place? Awaiting your rescue,

VANITY FAIR DOUG STUMPF SENlO~ ARTICLES EDITOR

b/Z)IU I GraydonI fear the Ed Coaster situation is coming to a head. Some of my writer friends say he's making a complete ass of himself up at Smuglawn. Exposing himself, getting blitzed in the A.M.. groping the Minots. (`an we discuss this soon?

June 26, 2001 Dear ra~don: Cancel that last request. Lifesaving call came from my EngliBh publisher, who says U. K. edition of The Edwin John Coaster Reader is a hit. Big book tour in the oiling, etc. Apparently I'm a youth-cult celebrit~ over there. Bollock8, the new Felix Dennis magazine, rated my Reader "five bacon sarnies" (highest ratingHl) and named me "the greatest living podgy alcoholic serial-marrying mad American writer." (Natch, they ran that old photo of me cupping Germaine Greer~s gozangas.) Well, if an~one needs me, I'll be at the St. Martin~. Best,