A.E.: Did you actually put vodka in an alcoholic catholic priest’s holy water fount and he got drunk on it? And the embarrassment for a devoutly catholic parents made them move with you out of Lewiston. Jesus did turn water into wine. But you must have been a feisty child; not one to be messed with! As Roy put it in After the Falls during your imaginary conversation with him, “The Boss (your dad) does not know with whom he messeth.” What is your relationship to Catholicism today – also considering that your partner whom you met in Coming Ashore is Jewish.
C.M.G.: I have nothing to do whatsoever with the Catholic church.
A.E.: Your memoirs are at once literary works, historical documents and a chronicling of a unique transitional era in American popular culture. You met Jimi Hendrix in London, used to know the colourful Rick James from USA (in your high school days) to Canada before he became a superstar musician; your friendship with Roy at ringside made you instinctively recognize the genius of a young Cassius Clay as your dad made a bet on him fighting on TV when you were about 12. You witnessed the beginning of entertainment revolution when your parents owned one of the first TV sets in the USA of the late 1950s; you witnessed the beginning of the Kleenex industry. Retrospectively, how does it feel to have witnessed history in the making? Consider for example the recent passing of Mohammed Ali and your first encounter with him on ‘RCA Victor’ (that’s your family’s first TV’s brand name).
C.M.G.: I think we are all involved in our history. We all have some relationship with our culture and famous people in it whether it is fantasy or reality. For example, everyone in my era was part of the landing on the moon and Kennedy’s death. Every single person can tell you where they were the moment these things happened because they were so emotionally involved in it. Funny you should mention Ali. I just wrote an article after his death about his relationship to my father and me. As you know, my father and I did imitations of Ali and Cosell, the sports announcer. Years later, when my father had a brain tumour and didn’t recognize me or couldn’t speak in a coherent way, he suddenly snapped to when he heard me do my Ali imitation and he would hold a pretend microphone and be Howard Cosell and all the memorized interviews came out perfectly coherently. It was such a permanent and huge memory he never lost it. Amazing when you consider that he forgot all the people he’d ever known, except for my mother—but he NEVER forgot Ali and Cosell.
A.E.: Would you say that your literary training at Oxford has had an impact on your effectiveness and success as a writer.
C.M.G.: I don’t believe that Oxford had much effect on me as a writer. I do think I learned a lot while I was there—and knowledge can only help any writer. I think telling stories is something I’ve already done since I was old enough to have an audience. I think Roy, my mom and my dad contributed to me being a writer. They always laughed and encouraged my tales.
A.E.: Is there going to be another book in this memoir series or is the subject exhausted?
C.M.G.: I would love to continue on since I have lots to write about, being a psychologist, being a mother, aging etc. However, the story involves other people now, husband, three grown sons and I would be invading their privacy. I had an ideal situation early in life—in terms of memoir writing up to the age of 25. First I am an only child, and secondly my parents died young. So there was no one’s privacy to invade.
A.E.: Did your father’s disapproval of you appearing to flirt with Donny Burns as a 12-year-old ever affected your relationship with men generally? I am thinking about the Aristocratic Clive at oxford particularly. Did your leaving him had only to do with impatience with upper-class snobbery and insensitivity that you witnessed at Cherry Run (Fast) Estate in Coming Ashore?
C.M.G.: My father never once disciplined me until his meltdown over Donny Burns. For sure that had a big impact on me. I wanted nothing to do with boys or men until well into University. Even then I was leery of them. Clive was almost always good and kind, much kinder than I ever thought of being, but when I went to Cherry Run, I realized what a hold his mother had on him. I also realized that his view of the class system was rooted in his mother’s view. It was not one I was raised in and not one I could accept. Sometimes things are deal breakers and our different views on the class system turned out to be a deal breaker.
A.E.: Did you ever hear from Roy again and could one say that meeting Roy had a formative influence on your sense for the egalitarian and your anti-class positions when you were in England and had to deal with a snobbish Oxford crowd?
C.M.G.: I never did hear from Roy again, nor did anyone in Lewiston that I know of. He just disappeared. I think Roy had a great deal to do with making me who I was in almost every respect. I developed story telling for him because he couldn’t read – so I read to him or else summarized articles for him. My sense of humour comes from him. We laughed every day about all the things we saw and then would imitate them all in the car. I have always worked at being kind, as kind as Roy. (I never fully succeeded). He never once said a mean thing about anyone, ever. Nor did he have a bad temper. Although I went to Catholic School for years, I learned true Christianity from Roy. He always gave people the benefit of the doubt. When I wanted to blame, he wanted to forgive. That was my greatest lesson from Roy. My parents also tried to be egalitarian and would never belong to a club that would exclude others. My father was a great lover of America and thought the best thing about it was that anyone could become a success no matter what his or her class. He strongly disliked snobbery and when he called someone a snob, I knew even at the age of four that was a REALLY bad thing to be.
A.E.: In retrospect, what would you have had happen differently; would you rather have lived differently any parts of those years you recount so poignantly in your trilogy?
C.M.G.: I actually would have done all the things I did because you learn through your mistakes. Sometimes I made big mistakes, like Laurie, but it toughened me up and I learned not to believe everything I heard. The only real mistake I made that was irreparable was being mad at my father and then he lost his mind and died. Before the Donny fight I was very close to my dad. We worked side by side every day. However, when we moved to Buffalo and I was at the age of 13, I had the Donny fight with him. I was never nice to him again. I was stubborn and refused to forgive him for embarrassing and humiliating me. By the second year of my continued anger, when I was 15, he got a brain tumour and lost his mind and we never had a chance to make up. Lots of teenagers treat their parents badly and then they realize how good their parents were and make up in late teenage years. I missed that chance and if I had it to do over again, I would not be unkind to a father who gave his life to raising me. One thing I learned is never let a fight go over a day for time is precious. Sometimes there are no second chances.
A.E.: Finally, we would like to thank you for taking time off your reading schedule to have a conversation with us.
C.M.G.: I’ve enjoyed it.
