Table of Contents
CHAPTER 3 - AUTUMN IN NEW YORK
CHAPTER 4 - DISPATCHES FROM MY OFFICE
CHAPTER 5 - CHINESE FINGER CUFFS
CHAPTER 7 - “IRIS’S MOVIE CORNER”
CHAPTER 10 - OUT OF HELL’S KITCHEN
To my parents, Arthur and Popy Smyles
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To Frederic Tuten, my Virgil, for seeing me through the fire
Because Dante the character is a fictional creation of Dante the poet, the reader should remember that the character’s feelings do not always correspond to those of the poet.... Indeed, on a general level, the kindness and compassion of Dante the character often contrasts with the feelings of Dante the poet, who, after all, has devised excruciating torments with which to punish his characters, many of whom are historical individuals with whom Dante was acquainted in life.
SPARKNOTES: THE INFERNO
PROLOGUE
AT SEA
To be an old man and finished at twenty-three . . .
STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ, LETTER 1864
I
1
Looking back, the vintage 1930s red and green tartan suit may have been a touch too much. But it was the most conservative thing I owned. And I did look great in it, I noted, crouching down on the ledge of the bathtub to check myself in the medicine cabinet mirror. Just like Rosalind Russell at the news desk in His Girl Friday. There was no way they wouldn’t hire me!
I skipped out the door, walking briskly to generate my own heat. I’d not worn a jacket for fear of corrupting my look and the sun was all but ignoring me. In the corner of the sky there it stood, aloof and cold, as if the lavish heat of summer were suddenly an embarrassment. Everywhere there is heartbreak, I thought, looking up at a thin tree, its leaves clinging desperately to branches that wanted no more to do with them. What a cad the fall is.
At the corner, I opened my newspaper. A reporter had solicited job-seeking advice from human resources personnel all over Manhattan. “Confidence is everything. You need to sell yourself!” one said. “The biggest mistake job-seekers make is not adequately preparing for the interview,” said another. “Ask yourself before you get there, ‘Would I hire me?’ If the answer is ‘Yes’ you’ve dramatically increased your chances.” The light changed. I turned the page to see what advice they gave if the answer was “No,” but the article was over.
I arrived at the convention center, at the head of a long line of applicants dressed somberly in gray and blue. I lifted my mesh veil. “Is this whole line for the job fair?”
“It starts around the corner,” a gray and blue man answered, in a voice that was also gray and blue. He motioned far behind him.
“I’m on the list,” I said, biting my lip. This is code in Manhattan: That you’re not on the list doesn’t matter; you should be.
He looked at me blankly. “What list?”
I walked the whole block and half the next one before finding the end, then took out my résumé and began looking it over. Four years in the city only to end up out in the cold.... I sighed and unpinned my pillbox hat; it was pulling my hair too tightly and the bobby pins were giving me a headache.
Two hours later, I was ushered into a great bustling hall. Booths! Banners! Balloons! “Free Gifts!” The Hearst table was doling out York Peppermint Patties. Hachette Filipacchi Media, pencils etched with the company’s name. Star was offering back issues, pencils etched with the company’s name, and York Peppermint Patties. I dug my hand into a bowl of caramels at Us Weekly, popped one into my mouth, and surveyed the room—always my first move when attending a party.
I got on line for the men’s magazine Maxim, behind a slightly nerdy yet well-put-together Yale grad. I knew he’d gone to Yale because the reporter who was interviewing people for a story on the current recession and its effect on recent college graduates,