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| REVIEWS | BY ANDREW WALKER |
 Jay and Fran Landesman at home  An issue of the legendary magazine Oz from February 1971 to which Jay Landesman contributed a piece on macrobiotics |
JAY Landesman’s biography might be the only book with cover blurb recommendations from both Julie Burchill and Norman Mailer. If the macho American writer and the controversy-courting columnist from Essex were to meet then perhaps the only thing they could agree on is that Jay and Fran Landesman – the last remaining members of the Beat Generation of poets, writers and bon-vivants – are a unique pair. When son Cosmo (critic and Julie Burchill’s ex-husband) was asked at school what his father did, he paused and said: “He doesn’t do anything, he’s just a big-shot.” The Landesmans live together on different floors of their elegantly ramshackle Duncan Terrace house, in Islington. Pioneers of the bohemian open marriage, Jay, 85, says: “I see my wife twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. She says: ‘I married you for better or for worse, but never for lunch’.” Fran lives upstairs, waiting for the grip of her muse and writing poetry on scraps of paper. Both Fran and Jay have books on the market. Fran’s is a warming collection of twisted verse called How Was it For You? Jay is the subject of a breezy, elliptical biography called Landesmania!, of which he says: “It’s just the facts –that’s why it’s such a short book.” Written by a friend, Philip Trevena (“he inherited one of my mistresses” says Jay on how he met his biographer) and published by a small printing press, it can be bought at the stall in the Angel Sunday farmers’ market where Jay buys his organic vegetables. Whenever Beat writers like Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac broke their mad, cross-country quests for the American Dream in Landesman’s hometown of St Louis during the early 1950s, they found themselves in the Crystal Palace – Jay’s Art Deco bar for hedonists. Jay published an underground magazine called Neurotica, and cultivated creative friends. “We were busting the censorship laws, it was our mission,” he said. He met Fran, and it was love. Speaking in his “den”, holding a glass of orange juice, the stories Jay tells of their lives are honed and humourous. He says: “I wrote a Broadway musical called the Nervous Set about the Beats. On the first night Jack (Kerouac) couldn’t get in because he was too drunk. “I told the manager: ‘You’ve gotta let Jack in – this musical is about him!’ “A friend whispered in my ear that it would be better publicity if he didn’t get let in, but I talked the manager around. “Jack slept through the whole thing until the last line of the last song, which had his name in it. “Hearing it, he woke up with a start, turned to me as the actors were taking their curtain calls and said: ‘Good show Jay’. They were all very insecure people.” Fran wrote the lyrics for the Nervous Set – the first jazz musical, Jay says, although he is hard pressed to name any others. Mr Landesman can quote verbatim great swathes of poetry his wife wrote nearly 50 years ago, with a glint in his eye. They arrived in Islington as cultural refugees from an America torn apart by racial tension and the Vietnam War. Always the contrarian, Jay placed a wanted ad in the Times for a flat instead of looking at the adverts himself. Fran says: “When we came to London, I arrived with nothing but Peter Cook’s telephone number. It served us well, we couldn’t have known a better person.” Jay adds: “It’s not like that in New York. “If you don’t have money they won’t even look at you to spit on you. Peter was a lot like me, he owned a bar and knew all these fabulous people. “When he hit it big, he told me: ‘I’ll never change’, but he did. It was very sad to watch.” Their adventures are well documented in Trevena’s book, Jay might say it’s “just the facts” but it does more to add to the myth of Landesman than a full expose. They knew everyone there was to know in Swinging London and their tales of busting the censorship laws with their publications are absorbing. These days Fran performs regularly at poetry events in bars – keeping the Beat spirit with her sweet downbeat lyrics. She says: “I sit upstairs, sometimes in bed, and the poem plunges into my head, courses through my arm to my pen and I write. But most of my best stuff comes out of Jay’s mouth. He’s so funny. “We go out every day for a walk and sit in the park, hold hands, talk to the pigeons and pretend everything is alright in the world.” n How Was It For You? by Fran Landesman, is published by Golden Handshake, for £7.50. n Landesmania! A Biography, by Philip Trevena, is published by Tiger of the Stripe, for £18.99, and is available from Amazon.co.uk |
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