Entry 476 — Bad News
Just last night I heard of Len Fulton’s death from Karl Kempton. A huge loss to me personally, and to the larger world. What small visibility I have as a critic is due almost entirely to him. What small visibility our country’s best writers have is due in large part to him, too–due to his support of the small press and micro-press for so long. (His American Odyssey, a Bookselling Travelogue, which is about his beginnings in his vocation, is still entertainingly and informativelyl worth reading.)
I never met him personally–or even talked to him on the phone. But we exchanged a lot of notes over the twenty years or so that I knew him. He was always upbeat and supportive. In his last note to me (this June), he wished me luck with my hip, which I’d just written him I was going to have replaced.
I was amused to hear that he’d been a life-long fan of the baseball Giants–and saddened that I hadn’t shared his happiness for them when they won the world series last year. I’d rooted for them when they were the New York Giants, then for a while after they abandoned their New Jersey, New York and Connecticut fans, but only because of my emotional investment in their players. I eventually dropped them for the Mets. I disliked them (and the Dodgers) for many years but last year they were my team–I liked their players and felt the organization had been punished long enough for having skipped out. Now that I find they won one for Len, I’m even more for them!
I hope he can be replaced enough to allow Dustbooks to continue. He certainly won’t be replaced enough to satisfy any of the many who will miss him.