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The story behind the untold story (Willian Saroyan)

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  • The story behind the untold story (Willian Saroyan)

    The Fresno Bee (California)
    May 1, 2008 Thursday

    The story behind the untold story

    by Guy Keeler, The Fresno Bee, Calif.



    May 1--William Saroyan's dream of becoming a writer sprouted in Fresno
    and blossomed in San Francisco. Like the first flower of spring, he
    seemed to burst on the literary scene overnight.

    But from the time he signed up for a typing class at Fresno Technical
    School around 1920 until Story magazine published "The Daring Young
    Man on the Flying Trapeze" in 1934, he wrote many things that never
    saw print.

    Beginning today, The Bee will present one of Saroyan's early,
    unpublished works. "Follow," a virtually unknown novella of about
    26,000 words, will appear in 13 installments through June 1.

    Publication of the novella was arranged through the Stanford
    University Libraries, which keeps the work in its collection of
    Saroyan papers.

    "William Saroyan was a truly prolific writer, and there is a vast body
    of unpublished work in his archives," said Annette Keogh, William
    Saroyan Curator for American and British Literature at Stanford. "Many
    know him through the Saroyan classics, but there is so much in the
    archives that is very good. Anything that draws new readers to
    unpublished Saroyan material is an exciting thing."

    "Follow" was brought to The Bee's attention by Bill Secrest Jr., who
    learned about the novella last year from Aram Saroyan, the son of
    William Saroyan. Secrest, history librarian for the Fresno County
    Public Library and a member of the William Saroyan Society and the
    William Saroyan Centennial Committee, was looking for ways to create a
    tangible Saroyan tribute.

    "When Bill told me the centennial was coming up, I thought of
    'Follow,' " Aram Saroyan said. "I had read it about 10 years ago while
    going through some of my dad's archive material. It's a beautiful
    piece of work. I haven't read anything among his unpublished works
    that I like better."

    The novella bears the address of a second-story apartment on Carl
    Street in San Francisco, a block south of Golden Gate Park and seven
    blocks from the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets. Saroyan shared
    the place with his mother, Takoohi, brother Henry and sister
    Cosette. At the time he wrote "Follow," he had returned from an
    unsuccessful quest to become a writer in New York and was continuing
    to pursue his dream in the security -- and obscurity -- of his
    mother's San Francisco flat.

    Saroyan typically put a date on everything he wrote, said Dickran
    Kouymjian, a Saroyan friend and retired chairman of the Armenian
    Studies program at California State University, Fresno. But he also
    sent manuscripts to typing services, which produced undated copies for
    him. No date appears on any of the copies of "Follow" at Stanford.

    When writing from personal experience, which he often did, Saroyan
    liked to get things down on paper while the memories were fresh,
    Kouymjian said. Since Saroyan returned from New York in 1929, he might
    have written the novella that year or in 1930.

    "Follow," which begins in the summer of 1924, tells the story of
    16-year-old Aram Diranian, who breaks away from his Fresno roots to
    seek adventure and a new life in New York.

    Secrest said those who knew Saroyan or have read about his life will
    be intrigued by the autobiographical tidbits in "Follow." He describes
    his boyhood home on San Benito Avenue, with its walnut tree, crickets,
    spiders and mice. He tells about eating oatmeal and bread for
    breakfast and lamb stew or cabbage soup at night. He also mentions
    writers who captured his attention -- H. L. Mencken, Walt Whitman,
    Sherwood Anderson, Mark Twain and Jack London, to name a few -- and
    yearns to get away from his hometown.

    "The thrust is similar to James Joyce's 'A Portrait of the Artist as a
    Young Man,' " Secrest said. "It's about a young fellow trying to feel
    his way around in the world. It's a classical coming-of-age piece."

    Aram Saroyan said readers familiar with his father's published work
    will find, in "Follow," some rehearsals of scenes that show up in
    later Saroyan books and plays. The novella also showcases Saroyan's
    early writing skill.

    "On the first page, you see the work of a writer who is barely 21
    years old," Aram Saroyan said. "The prose is so beautiful and
    lyrically done that it already has the stamp of the writer that my
    father would become."

    Aram Saroyan calls "Follow" the best of his father's apprentice works,
    a collection of several unpublished book-length manuscripts in the
    Saroyan archives at Stanford. He is not surprised the manuscript is
    still around after eight decades, adding, "My father kept
    everything. He was a pack rat."

    Aram Saroyan said he has found no evidence that his father ever
    submitted "Follow" for publication. Although William Saroyan was to
    gain fame as a master of the short story, he might have produced
    "Follow" in an effort to write longer pieces. An editor's letter in
    the archives, urging his father to write a novel, might have motivated
    the work, Aram Saroyan said.

    Secrest said the autobiographical aspects of "Follow" might offer
    another clue to why it was written.

    "One thing about Saroyan, he was at the typewriter every day," Secrest
    said. "Writing was something he ate, lived and dreamed about. It was
    catharsis and therapy. I think in 'Follow' there may have been
    something in Saroyan that needed to come out."

    Betsy Lumbye, executive editor and senior vice president of The Bee,
    and Managing Editor Jack Robinson had been looking for unpublished
    Saroyan material to share with readers when they first read "Follow."

    "It's a rare honor and a privilege to be able to unveil an unpublished
    work by an author of William Saroyan's stature," Lumbye said. "It
    means a lot to me, personally, because I first read "The Human Comedy"
    when I was growing up in Virginia in the 1960s and was captivated by
    the place and people he depicted."

    "Follow" also will appear on The Bee's Web site, which could generate
    an even wider worldwide audience.

    "We were immediately taken with the piece," Robinson said. "It works
    as a story, and it also says a lot about Saroyan the man. He was so
    young at the time that he had to rely heavily on his own experience
    for material. His passionate character just shines off the page."
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