Legendary publisher Robert Giroux died late last week, and his passing made me think of his last trip to Kenyon College. It was November 1998, when the college held a symposium on its alumnus Robert Lowell. As a Kenyon Review Student Associate and a junior at the college at the time, I was assigned to drive a small van to pick Giroux up from the Columbus Int'l Airport. Arriving from points east to Ohio that afternoon were Giroux, poets Jorie Graham and Frank Bidart, and critic Helen Vendler. It was an hour before they all arrived- Giroux got there first- and when they did they piled into the little gray van for the hour's drive to Gambier, Ohio.
Robert Giroux sat shotgun. He was gray, quiet and gruff, but he inquired after my studies- he approved of my reading Joyce- and wore his seatbelt like royalty. He clutched his strong white hands on his knees and stared forward, and whenever some poetic jumble would rise up on the back- Vendler and Graham were discoursing mightily on the poets of Lowell's generation- Giroux would continue to look straight ahead at the yellowing Ohio cornfields that passed by and say, "What's this now? I didn't quite get it." I had to agree. Though Giroux meant he hadn't caught what they said, and I wondered about his hearing, I meant I hadn't the slightest idea what they were talking about.
When we finally reached Gambier, I was to take the four to Gambier House, a bed and breakfast in town, just around the corner from the white colonial where Lowell, Peter Taylor and Randall Jarrell once helped give new life to Kenyon's literary legend. To our right, coming up over the hill where Kenyon sits, is a majestic old Episcopal Church. In front is a huge oak tree that must be easily a hundred years old; until just a couple years ago, when a turbulent lightning storm took its biggest limb, it towered over the whole lawn on the way to the academic side of Kenyon's campus. Though it was already mid-autumn, a couple stood outside in tuxedo and white dress, taking pictures in front of the tree before their wedding. The sun was low then- our guests had come on mid-afternoon flights and the days were growing short- and the vermillion sun pierced the horizon. It was the kind of scene young girls dream of for their weddings. I slowed the van. Giroux hadn't turned his head once the whole ride, but now he looked off to his right.
"Oh, those fools, those utter fools," Jorie Graham said from the back, breaking the silence. "They have no idea what they're getting themselves into, those utter fools!"
I started the van moving again, feeling sentimental, silly-and chastised for it. We were only a couple hundred yards from the bed and breakfast. For the first time on the whole ride, now Giroux turned to me.
"Tell that Jorie girl to pipe down," he said.
He looked me directly in the eyes, and then turned his gaze back to the road. Clearly he'd heard every word that had come from the back of that van all ride long. He just wanted to take in the Ohio countryside.
This was originally published in the Kenyon Review.