Familiar Spirits was an odd book to read.
I didn't know who Alison Lurie is, or who the subjects of this memoir were, David Jackson and James Merrill. It was a little like being the friend of a guest at a dinner party; nice to meet everyone, hear some old stories, but I don't know anyone, and will never see them again.
James Merrill is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet whose father was a founder of Merrill Lynch. Very witty and elegant, he had enough money that he could devote his time to writing and travel, living all over the world. David Jackson was his partner for over 40 years. More rough and tumble, handier with dealing with 'real life' issues, he was also a writer. They did a lot of entertaining, hanging out with the art crowd including Truman Capote, Peggy Guggenheim and the Pulitzer Prize winning writer of this biography, Alison Lurie.
Familiar Spirits is a memoir of their life together, especially their interest in Ouija boards and spirits. From 1955 until 1982, James and David practiced contacting spirits through a Ouija board and writing down the messages. James was the 'scribe' who took the notes, and David was the 'hand' whom the spirits spoke through. They had the idea of following the poets Blake and Dante and compose a long serious poem dealing with philosophical issues. They contacted a spirit guide named Ephraim who among others dictated the information, which James then edited into the final product "The Book Of Ephraim" in 1976, followed by the sequels "Mirabell"(1978) and "Scripts For The Pageant" (1980) ~ All complied later under the title "The Changing Light At Sandover" in 1982.
The writing and observations were well received, but during the writing their relationship went through many changes. They each had outside lovers during the relationship, and by the end of the poem the relationship was mostly over.
And there is the question of who wrote the work, how much influence was the hand or the scribe in directing the answers or editing the text. If David was the vessel, did the writing come from his subconscious, and when James was editing, how much of it was his revision? In the end only James' name appeared on the book.
It was an interesting book and well written ~ interesting to see their lives through a close friend. I enjoyed it but wasn't sure why I was reading it. It didn't make me want to read more of James Merrill or Sandover. Although they lead separate lives in the end, I found the most interesting theme of the book how they maintained a same sex partnerships for 4 decades at a time when that wasn't open or common.
2001 / Paperback / 192 pages
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