William Monahan once rang up writer Anthony Burgess in the middle of the night

As I wrote a few days ago, I'm apparently a big bother to writer and filmmaker William Monahan. Perhaps it's the far reach of my research into his works, which has brought me into contact with his friends, brief acquaintances, and even former colleagues. Or maybe it's the genealogical research I've been doing into his family tree. What writer wants someone poring through official documents left behind by the members of their family for the purposes of elucidating upon their written works.

You may have noticed that so far I have exclusively discussed writer William Monahan and his works in my blog entries without any mention of other New York Press writers, other than briefly mentioning C.J. Sullivan the other day. This is just the current kick I'm on. Before I started this blog I had just finished writing a biography of NYPress writer Alan Cabal. I've done some research into NYPress writer Jim Knipfel, but other than his memoirs and some of his journalism, I'm not a huge fan of Mr. Knipfel's works. I think Mr. Knipfel is a great character though, but on the whole he's a hack (he admitted as much in an interview, if I recollect properly).

As troubling as it may be to have someone examining your life's work with a magnifying glass, at least my efforts are not inane. As Mr. Monahan tells it, he and his friends once rang up writer Anthony Burgess in the middle of the night and did nothing more than ask one silly question after rousing him from bed. Here is the conversation that Mr. Monahan claims to have had, circa 1992, with writer Anthony Burgess (1917 – 1993):

Excerpted from Mr. Monahan's NYPress essay "Byrne"¹:

One night back in my party days we drank several bottles of Jagermeister, had a talk about the state of literature and decided to call writers. Someone who had just read John Cheever's letters tried to call Allan Gurganus' mother and ask how she thought he'd got into The New Yorker. We tried Julian Barnes. Amis was unlisted. Gore Vidal came to naught—you try to get a phone number in Italy at 3 a.m.

Finally it occurred to us: Anthony Burgess. If anyone would talk to us—if there was anyone we wanted to talk to—it was Anthony Burgess.

He having published his addresses in his autobiography (either Little Wilson and Big God or the other one), we figured he wanted company and wouldn't mind a call. I got directory information in the Principality of Monaco (you have to call France for this) and asked for the number for Mr. John Wilson. The phone purred about 4000 times and then an old Englishman answered.

"Who in God's name is it?"

"Anthony Burgess?"

"Yes?"

"The writer Anthony Burgess?"

"Yes, yes, yes."

I braced myself and got to the clever part.

"Is your pen name John Wilson?"

At this moment, of course, I realized that I'd totally fucked up what I had intended to say. Burgess himself was floored by the inanity of the question. Three thousand miles of weirdness crackled on the line. Burgess recovered first.

"No," he said, smoothly, "I have nothing to do with him." There was another protracted silence. "Go to bed," said Burgess, not unkindly, and hung up.

About a year later, he died. From then till now I have never bothered another writer, and so it shall be, selah. All that's left is karma.

Anthony Burgess was the pen name of John Burgess Wilson, though every reader knows the man by his pen name rather than his real name. When I read Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange a few years back I loved it and even took to using, for a short time, and only with my close friends, the fictional argot called Nadsat that the characters in the novel talk to each other in. If Mr. Monahan's anecdote above is any indication, Anthony Burgess seems to have been a kind, gentle man, though I don't know what his temper was with journalists, interviewers, and his biographers. Everyone has their snapping point.

Take-away question: Who were Mr. Monahan's drinking buddies on the night they called up writer Anthony Burgess?

Sources:

1) William Monahan. "Byrne", New York Press, vol. 10, no. 32 (August 6–12, 1997), Books & Publishing Supplement, p. 14.