Via the Stacks Reader (A living archive of the best print journalism, curated by Alex Belth):
Hog-Wild in the Streets
In the summer of 1968, John Berendt, a young associate editor of Esquire, accompanied three members of that magazine’s unusual team of reporters to the Democratic National Convention, held that year in Chicago: Jean Genet, William Burroughs and Terry Southern. (Esquire also dispatched the more sensible, John Sack, as insurance.) It was all part of Esquire editor Harold Hayes’ scheme to land literary gold. Well, the ’68 DNC became famous, and the three literary gents delivered appropriately cryptic and weird reportage, interesting for sure, but nothing great. The three amigos didn’t deliver anything nearly as powerful as Berendt’s own observations, which appeared the following year in the paperback anthology, Telling It Like It Was. Berendt went on to enjoy a long magazine career and achieved his own fame as the author of the Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.—Alex Belth
Unnoticed amid the confusion of arriving delegates and newsmen in the lobby of the Sheraton-Chicago Hotel, three writers met to have a drink: Jean Genet, William Burroughs, and Terry Southern. They were there to observe the Democratic Convention, two days away, and to act as reporters for Esquire magazine.
For Genet, this was his first visit to America and it was a trip that he had been frank enough to say he dreaded making. Americans by the million may have read and respected his novels and been electrified by his plays, but Genet could not forget that the American government had refused to give him a visa only a few years before. It had been worse than that: the American embassy in Paris had given it to him and then called the next day to tell him they wanted it back, that on second thought he, Jean Genet, a man preeminent in the world of Letters, was in the eyes of the U.S. State Department primarily a former thief, convict, and admitted pederast—not welcome in the States. It.is possible that Genet agreed to come to the Democratic Convention having been persuaded by the reassuring likelihood that he would see America at its very worst.
On his way to Chicago, Genet stopped off in New York, where he was joined by Richard and Jeannette Seaver. Seaver, who is the managing editor of Grove Press, was Genet’s publisher here and would act as interpreter and translate the diary Genet was to keep in Chicago. Jeannette, Seaver’s young French wife, beautiful and hip, would also interpret for Genet, who spoke no English. The day before leaving, they came to Esquire’s offices to have lunch with the editors of the magazine. Genet, somewhat elfin-looking in an open-collared white shirt, corduroy slacks, and a suede jacket, was amiable and warm, and startlingly candid.
“What are your impressions of America?” someone asked him.
“I am a guest here, and I shall not abuse the hospitality,” he said.
“Feel free,” one of the editors interjected, “we are hardly super-patriots.”
“Prove it,” Genet insisted.
“Well, we asked you to cover the convention, didn’t we?”
“Oh no,” Genet replied emphatically, “My name is known all over the world. You asked me out of snobbery.”
For William Burroughs, going to Chicago meant returning to a city he had not seen for more than twenty years....
....MUCH MORE
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