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Providence: How I met Virginia Spencer Carr
By May Beth Simmons
This writer had the great privilege of meeting Dr.
Carr at the 2004 Hemingway Conference held in Key West, Florida. After
presenting my paper, Dr. Carr approached me to ask where I had found the
Paul Bowles passage I had quoted in my presentation. When she told me that
her Bowles biography would be released this November, I announced I had
already “pre-ordered” it online and had to admit that I was experiencing a
bit of “fan shock” that the great biographer Virginia Spencer Carr had
approached me! As luck would have it, we became fast friends and
spent much of our time in Key West attending the same conference panels and
end-of-the-day gatherings, one of which was a sunset catamaran cruise.
At a party held at the Southernmost house one evening, Dr. Carr (who was
insisting I now call her Virginia) asked if I would like to accompany her on
an adventure. “Well, that depends,” I replied.
“You see, I need a companion to help me find a dance floor in one of the
hotels here. It’s where Tennessee and I used to go dancing.” Of course she
knew Tennessee Williams! I accepted her offer and while we never did find
that dance floor, I can report that we had a lot of fun looking for it. I
can also report that her Southern charm prompted one concierge to open an
abandoned hotel, so caught up in Virginia’s quest to recapture part of her
past with the legendary Williams.
When Virginia Spencer Carr brings her charismatic storytelling to the Falvey
Library Distinguished Lecture Series on Thursday, November 18th,
she will not disappoint. Her thirteen trips to Morocco to visit and
interview Bowles, the American expatriate, led to a level of trust and
intimacy, necessities in the construction of any noteworthy biography. Rex
Reed has said, “Ms. Carr is not only a superb academic historian, meticulous
researcher and impassioned biographer, but also a writer with the narrative
skills of the kind of mystery novelist who would be the envy of Agatha
Christie. This is riveting stuff. From first page to last page, I give
Paul Bowles: A Life a standing ovation.” |
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