February 22, 2018

Me and Mark Twain in Buffalo, part 2

Update: Last week, I talked about how I entered a contest in 2001 to write the conclusion to an unpublished Mark Twain novella “A Murder, A Mystery, and a Marriage.” The Buffalo public library, which ran the contest to bring publicity to the fact that it acquired the entirety of the manuscript to “Huckleberry Finn,” informed me that I was one of the finalists. I agreed to be flown up to Buffalo that September.

It was actually early October in 2001 when I was driven to the Harrisburg airport for the flight to Buffalo. The country was still shaken by 9/11. The mood was somber. The presence of National Guardsmen with their weapons out probably had something to do with it.

Mark Twain in Buffalo Atlantic — The cover of *The Atlantic,* a Ken Burns doc, a contest with Garrison Keillor and Joyce Carol Oates as judges … I had forgotten what a big deal this contest was.

Seeing Buffalo in autumn didn’t help any. The weather reminded me a lot of growing up in Warren, Ohio, an industrial town bathed in perpetual grey. On the day of the ceremony, I walked to the library down well-kept streets that seemed utterly devoid of people.

The atmosphere warmed up inside the library. The officials were pleased to see us there, and among the judges (including Garrison Keillor, Joyce Carol Oates, Leslie Fielder, and Roy Blount) only Dayton Duncan, who worked with Ken Burns on his documentaries including the “Mark Twain” biography, was there.

I must admit, I was too intimidated to make much of an impression on anyone. While I was pleased with my work, I had no idea how many people had entered. Maybe they only had three.

The library went out of its way to present an all-star event. The fun started at 2 p.m. with a talk with photos by a fellow involved in the Mark Twain Project. They’re the ones responsible for publishing, with annotations, nearly everything that Twain has written, including all his letters, his notebooks, authoritative editions of his works and his unpublished works as well. The three-volume “Autobiography” that made such a splash? That was them.

Then they screened part of the Ken Burns documentary on Twain. At 7:30, the award winners would be announced.

All I remember from the ceremony was a few speeches, then they had us on a little riser in front of the small crowd, and they read the results, one after another.

My story came in second. They presented us with two Twain books, “Huckleberry” and “Murder,” a wooden framed photo of Twain on glass, a plaque with my name misspelled, and a promise that the check was in the mail (it was).

That afternoon, I was back on the flight to Harrisburg, via Washington. By coincidence, Duncan was across the aisle from me, but what could I say? He ignored me, so I took that as my cue to stay silent as well.

I thought I was through with Twain, but it turned out Twain wasn’t through with me.

UPDATE: While writing this piece, I came across this talk about Twain between Roy Blount Jr. and Calvin Trillin on CSPAN-2. It took place in late October 2001, a couple weeks after the event in Buffalo. Blount’s comments about the content were, ahem, enlightening.