The Coaster Correspondence

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

EDWIN COASTER

10/7/03

Dear Graydon:

lust thought I'd drop & ilne to thau~ getting me in to see that back specialist at We4.... Medical. Re says I got this thing in my burma sac that-well, I won't bore ou with the details. ut it occurs to met Why doesn't V.P. have a sex column, lie every other successiul magazine does these days? I'd like to nominate my luscious new ladyfriend, Entendre Grogan, a 28-year-old pistol I met here in Maine over the summer. (She lives in the East 80s, but her Lamily has a place on Deer Isle.) I've enclosed a sample oZ her ork, which details her relationship with a certain iamous .:riter in the most thinly veiled terms. Enjoy, and do let me know what you think.

wnuAN ON TRE TOWN From the tops of her Manolo Blahniks down to th tips ot her Jimmy Choos, Maz-ina was dressed to ku "Better work it tonight, baby," said the Legend, her much older writer paramour. "We're meeting the Canadian at Da Silvano for dinner, and my contract is up for renegotiation." The Legend was looking pretty hot himself as he slipped his cuii 1in. into the cuffs of his custom made tattersall sport shirt iron Sei&e sur Vingt, his gray ohest hairs blanched white from a summer of fishing off his 21-foot sloop in Penobscot Baa. Marina had watched him catch a lot of fish, but she'd undoubtedly reeled in the biggest catch of Bil. "Minmm," she thought as she hungrily ogled that irresistible potbelly of' his. `Most definitely sashimi-grade." The Canadian was already at Da Silvano when Marina and the Lej arrived, elegantly parked behind a Grey Goose martini, a verboten cigarette in his hand, "LeJ!" cried the Canadian, motioning the handsome literar god to join him. "Will it be Blanton's on the rocks for you?" "Gray, we'll get to that," said the Legend, ever he gentleman. "First, meet Marina, my new ad'friend." s the Canadian rose to his full height, Marina ouldn't believe her good fortune-he was even more ndorphin-releasingly gorgeous than in the Mark eliger photo! The following night, Marina met her friend Nat in e library bar of Soho Rouse for Southsides and cket salad. "Shut your mouth, `TUna!" Nat giggled. ou can't date both of them

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VANITY FAIR Cmts GARRETT MANAGING EDITOR 8 October 2003 3raydon: I was very disturbed to read Ed's friend's submission, not least because I have a suspicion that this "friend" is Ed himself, and that he is posing as another writer in an attempt to draw a second income from us. Consider that both his letter and the prose sample seem to have been typed on the same typewriter. Consider that Ed uses the word `ladyfriend" in his letter, and "she" also uses it in "her" submission. Not to mention that no woman would ever write like that. Not to mention that the Marina character is apparently wearing two pairs of shoes. I think we need to confront Ed about this, but before we do, I think we need to go through our back issues for the last 10 years to determine if he has pulled this ruse on us before-successfully. It would sicken me, but I'd rather know than not know. To that end, I suggest that we hire Don Foster, the Vassar professor who outed Joe Klein as "Anonymous" and wrote that terrific piece on the anthrax investigation for our October issue. He is an expert at this so of thing and could do it fast, and I think time is of the essence-we a dragged-out Jayson Blair affair here.

VASSAR COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH To: Graydon Carter From: Don Foster First, the good news: I've read every single word of every single issue of Vanity Fair from the last 10 years, and can assure you that it's truly an excellent magazine. Now the bad news: It looks like Ed Coaster has done this before. I am reasonably certain that one of your esteemed writers Is a Coaster-perpetrated hoax. and that writer is Amy Fine Collins. It's pretty cut-and-dried: the language patterns in his books and letters are uncannily like those in Coffins's articles. I mean, in her 1996 article on Truman Capote's Black and White Ball alone, there are several close similarities. Collins calls In Cold Blood "the polished fruit of more than half a decade of research and writing." In his midlife-crisis novel, Prosky's Prostate (1987), Coaster refers to Prosky's young mistress, Genevieve, as "the polished fruit of four years at Miss Porters." Collins writes of Capote, "In his diminutive hands he controlled, or so it seemed, the destinies of an international group of players who could rouse presidents to actioit" Coaster uses the exact same construction-verbatim-to describe Daniel Ellsberg's clutching the Pentagon Papers In Requiem for ElIsbei (1974). It goes on and on-Collins writes in another article that she's from Tennessee, and her writing is sometimes sprinkled with Tennessean argot: Coaster was stationed at Fort Campbell, near the Tennessee border, for a time during his army days, and the Jewish soldier in his Korean War novel, In a Green Pink Country (1956). is named Emil Fein. (See my full 330-page report, attached.) There are other clues beyond language, such as the high improbability that sny professional writer could be slim enough to wear Geoffrey Beene couture, s Collins has claimed in her writings, and the fact-gleaned from a friend I ave in common with Coaster-that Coaster keeps a vintage Bonwit Teller epariment-store mannequin in his Maine living room as a sort of oiijet, and is mannequin looks just like the woman whose photograph runs routinely in ur contributors column. Mysteriously, "Collins" supplies her own photo rather an sitting for one of your people. And she never picks up the phone, my urces say-you leave a message, and someone who sounds like Ed aster impersonating a woman calls back. Thanks for hiring me for this fascinating project. Do I get the -