Malcolm Cowley, who championed Skid Road and named last
Wilderness, died March 27, 1989. Murray wrote an appreciation to his widow,
Muriel.
Dear Muriel...
Almost forty years have passed since our paths crossed in
Seattle during the "dirty poet" of 1950 uproar. We haven't seen you
since, but you and Malcolm changed our lives and have remained a strong
presence with us.
Rosa and I never visit the Olympic peninsula without
remembering our rainswept trip. I recall my chagrin when Malcolm asked me, as
the local expert, to identify a tree at Lake Quinault. I couldn't. He said it
looked like a redwood to him. I said that we don't have redwoods this far
north. But it was a redwood, an import, but very much redwood. I recall with
pleasure you both took at Lake Crescent, with the fog sweeping across the
treetops. That trip marked the first time we left small daughter Lane -- then
aged three months -- at home; so we think of you when we look after the
granddaughters. Lane, like your Robbie, is an editor, writer, and sometimes a
college prof.
Most of all, of course, I remember Malcolm's help in the
writing of Skid Road, my book about Seattle. He was the only editor I
have encountered who could look at a graph and say "what if you put it
this way" and give an example which not only solved the problem but served
as a lasting lesson. He broke my addiction to the Associated Press declarative
sentence, persuading me to risk occasional prolixity. I still glow on
remembering that in my next book, The Last Wilderness, about the
peninsula, he said I had achieved a sentence that required sundering.
I owe it to Malcolm that Skid Road is still in print, still
picks up honors (it has been named one of the best Washington books of the past
hundred years by a committee of scholars for the state centennial), and it has
made it possible for me to find publishers for books on topics I care about.
Like Faulkner, I owe him a debt no man can pay. And I'll remember you both
whenever I see a trillium.
Rosa joins in love and remembrance,
Murray
