A nice little find. Syracuse University holds the Mercury Press Records; Mercury Press produced The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited for a long time by Anthony Boucher. It turns out that there’s a file labeled Drussai which contains several letters from Garen and a pair from Kirk, all to Boucher.
The correspondence begins in January 1951, after Boucher had already asked for rewrites on an early version of “Extra-Curricular.” All of the correspondence is from one or the other Drussai to Boucher—none of his responses survive except as faintly penciled notes on the letters. Most of the material is Drussai sending off manuscripts, often through several rounds of revisions, which gives some insight into her career.
At the time she first wrote Boucher, Garen had already been rejected by Horace Gold at Galaxy and she was trying to get a sense of the market—how many revisions she could expect, and what-not. At first, she admitted, she started a lot of stories but could not finish them. Then she focused more. One gets the sense that she sometimes felt overwhelmed by her domestic responsibilities: “Between lawn planting------and fence building----------and curtain making I did manage to whip this “Surprisingly” long (for me) story together. Huh?,” she wrote in October 1956. A little while later, she resolved to take her writing more seriously. She also asked for Boucher’s advice on agents. She wanted to move into mainstream publishing, in addition to her science fiction, and also found Harry Altshuler—her agent—was apathetic toward her work.
In addition, the correspondence sheds some light on some of the obscure details of the Drussai’s life. They moved often. Her first letter gave their address as 259 Montana Street—far from Telegraph Hill, almost in Daly City. By May of 1951, she had moved to Hollywood, then to LA before the summer was over. The following Autumn she was on La Crescenta, only to move back north to San Francisco by 1955. In the spring of 1956, she was in the suburb of San Carlos, and then moved to Campbell, California that summer. The Drussais seemed to have stayed there until they divorced, right around New Year’s 1960. Garen and Milo moved to San Jose, Kirk to Santa Clara.
Apparently, Kirk had been in sales for most of this time—although I don’t know what he was selling. Around the beginning of 1957, he got involved with technical writing and was a member of the Bay Area Chapter of the Society of Technical Writers and Editors, which had about 25 members. He obviously could not know it, but moving into technical writing just as Silicon Valley was about to take off was wise. Quite probably, he published far more than his wife, who, judging by the correspondence here, had a lot of trouble placing her writing, although it’s unknown whether that’s because of the quality of the output or the closing of the pulp market in the 1950s.
Indeed, it’s worth a slight digression on this topic. I have seen a couple of newsletters the Golden Gate Chapter of the Society of Technical Publishers put out in the late 1950s. (That group and the STWE merged in 1960), and there are some interesting connections between technical writers and Forteans that are worth further exploration. Anthony Boucher, for example, came to talk at one of TPS’s meetings, discussing funny gaffes that had gotten past science fiction editors. Members of the TPS also heard a talk by one of the followers of General Semantics, which was then taking root in San Francisco since S. I. Hayawaka had come to San Francisco State University. And Kirk asked Tony to republish Isaac Asimov’s “Insert Knob A in Hole B,” which had been in the December 1957 F&SF. Although tech writing and science fiction seem, on the face of it, so different, I can see the connection, as in both cases the writer must use her or his imagination to make sense of—and make sensible—otherwise undigested scientific material.
But, back to the correspondence. It also reveals some personal facts about Garen that would otherwise be hard to come from. She had a great sense of humor, for instance. One letter to Boucher was entirely blank between the salutation and the signature, with a P.S.: “More later.” Another time, she submitted a story that, she learned upon reading the magazine, was very similar to one just published by F&SF (Avram Davidson’s “Summerland,” which implies that hers, titled “Wish Fulfillment, had something to do with Spiritualism.) She wrote, “I’ve been tricked by coincidence. . . . I hope my next to you is not the result of some telepathic meeting of minds. I couldn’t take it.”
Frustratingly, however, the letters do not quite solve some problems about her identity. In his first letter to her, Boucher was confused about her gender; she explained that she was a woman and, after some further prompting, gave some background to her unusual name: “In the Ross 128 Sector, Karen is a cognate of Garen; and Drussai is quite a common name. Sort of like your Smiths and Jonses (sic) here. (It’s Hungarian).”
At the time, Boucher (obviously) had not met Garen face-to-face. But he had by the time of his introduction to her first story (“Extra-Curricular,” June 1952), when he commented on her Hungarian beauty. But, of course, she never says in this letter that she is Hungarian. Maybe he assumed it, and so wrote it—and given that Garen was interested in re-inventing herself, she let it stand. Or maybe she had confirmed this in some other conversation. At any rate, it suggests that, at least at this time, she was not claiming to be Hungarian.
More confusing is her reference to “Ross 128 Sector.” Ross 128 is the star nearest the Earth; it had been discovered in 1926 and so was likely known by science fiction aficionados. Perhaps this was what she meant—a joke, her letters full of them, a reference to how far she was from Berkeley and the Bohemian parts of San Francisco?—or perhaps something more obscure. If we accept the star interpretation, then she seems close to admitting that the name is wholly fabricated, whether Drussai is Hungarian or not.
Like so many Forteans, Garen Drussai is quite a slippery character.
The correspondence begins in January 1951, after Boucher had already asked for rewrites on an early version of “Extra-Curricular.” All of the correspondence is from one or the other Drussai to Boucher—none of his responses survive except as faintly penciled notes on the letters. Most of the material is Drussai sending off manuscripts, often through several rounds of revisions, which gives some insight into her career.
At the time she first wrote Boucher, Garen had already been rejected by Horace Gold at Galaxy and she was trying to get a sense of the market—how many revisions she could expect, and what-not. At first, she admitted, she started a lot of stories but could not finish them. Then she focused more. One gets the sense that she sometimes felt overwhelmed by her domestic responsibilities: “Between lawn planting------and fence building----------and curtain making I did manage to whip this “Surprisingly” long (for me) story together. Huh?,” she wrote in October 1956. A little while later, she resolved to take her writing more seriously. She also asked for Boucher’s advice on agents. She wanted to move into mainstream publishing, in addition to her science fiction, and also found Harry Altshuler—her agent—was apathetic toward her work.
In addition, the correspondence sheds some light on some of the obscure details of the Drussai’s life. They moved often. Her first letter gave their address as 259 Montana Street—far from Telegraph Hill, almost in Daly City. By May of 1951, she had moved to Hollywood, then to LA before the summer was over. The following Autumn she was on La Crescenta, only to move back north to San Francisco by 1955. In the spring of 1956, she was in the suburb of San Carlos, and then moved to Campbell, California that summer. The Drussais seemed to have stayed there until they divorced, right around New Year’s 1960. Garen and Milo moved to San Jose, Kirk to Santa Clara.
Apparently, Kirk had been in sales for most of this time—although I don’t know what he was selling. Around the beginning of 1957, he got involved with technical writing and was a member of the Bay Area Chapter of the Society of Technical Writers and Editors, which had about 25 members. He obviously could not know it, but moving into technical writing just as Silicon Valley was about to take off was wise. Quite probably, he published far more than his wife, who, judging by the correspondence here, had a lot of trouble placing her writing, although it’s unknown whether that’s because of the quality of the output or the closing of the pulp market in the 1950s.
Indeed, it’s worth a slight digression on this topic. I have seen a couple of newsletters the Golden Gate Chapter of the Society of Technical Publishers put out in the late 1950s. (That group and the STWE merged in 1960), and there are some interesting connections between technical writers and Forteans that are worth further exploration. Anthony Boucher, for example, came to talk at one of TPS’s meetings, discussing funny gaffes that had gotten past science fiction editors. Members of the TPS also heard a talk by one of the followers of General Semantics, which was then taking root in San Francisco since S. I. Hayawaka had come to San Francisco State University. And Kirk asked Tony to republish Isaac Asimov’s “Insert Knob A in Hole B,” which had been in the December 1957 F&SF. Although tech writing and science fiction seem, on the face of it, so different, I can see the connection, as in both cases the writer must use her or his imagination to make sense of—and make sensible—otherwise undigested scientific material.
But, back to the correspondence. It also reveals some personal facts about Garen that would otherwise be hard to come from. She had a great sense of humor, for instance. One letter to Boucher was entirely blank between the salutation and the signature, with a P.S.: “More later.” Another time, she submitted a story that, she learned upon reading the magazine, was very similar to one just published by F&SF (Avram Davidson’s “Summerland,” which implies that hers, titled “Wish Fulfillment, had something to do with Spiritualism.) She wrote, “I’ve been tricked by coincidence. . . . I hope my next to you is not the result of some telepathic meeting of minds. I couldn’t take it.”
Frustratingly, however, the letters do not quite solve some problems about her identity. In his first letter to her, Boucher was confused about her gender; she explained that she was a woman and, after some further prompting, gave some background to her unusual name: “In the Ross 128 Sector, Karen is a cognate of Garen; and Drussai is quite a common name. Sort of like your Smiths and Jonses (sic) here. (It’s Hungarian).”
At the time, Boucher (obviously) had not met Garen face-to-face. But he had by the time of his introduction to her first story (“Extra-Curricular,” June 1952), when he commented on her Hungarian beauty. But, of course, she never says in this letter that she is Hungarian. Maybe he assumed it, and so wrote it—and given that Garen was interested in re-inventing herself, she let it stand. Or maybe she had confirmed this in some other conversation. At any rate, it suggests that, at least at this time, she was not claiming to be Hungarian.
More confusing is her reference to “Ross 128 Sector.” Ross 128 is the star nearest the Earth; it had been discovered in 1926 and so was likely known by science fiction aficionados. Perhaps this was what she meant—a joke, her letters full of them, a reference to how far she was from Berkeley and the Bohemian parts of San Francisco?—or perhaps something more obscure. If we accept the star interpretation, then she seems close to admitting that the name is wholly fabricated, whether Drussai is Hungarian or not.
Like so many Forteans, Garen Drussai is quite a slippery character.
