To the Editors:
Judging by her recent review of Musa Mayer’s Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston by His Daughter (September 1988), it would seem that Deborah Solomon not so much read a different book from that which I read as she concocted a new one more suitable to her spite than the original. The method employed is a combination of inaccurate and selectively edited citations.
I quote Solomon ostensibly quoting Mayer: “They [the Rothko family] seemed to have everything, I remember thinking . . . . But then, seven years later, Mark Rothko shot himself.” In her own words, Solomon continues, “Rothko didn’t shoot himself; he slit his wrists. It’s hard to know which is more offensive—this misstatement or the way the author slyly saved it for the last line of the chapter, squeezing every possible ounce of melodrama out of Rothko’s death.” In fact, Mayer’s chapter is about the longing she had for a normal home life, in the context of which the mention of Rothko’s death is not manipulative “melodrama” but the personal expression of shock and dismay at the loss of a family friend and the loss of an illusion of harmony. Further, Solomon’s equal emphasis on the “offensive” implications of rnisidentifying Rothko’s means of suicide strikes one as curious to say the least. How is Rothko’s reputation or tragedy in any way tainted by such an error? And whose error was it? Solomon’s, it would appear, since the actual text of Mayer’s final paragraph reflects Solomon’s supposed quotations neither in import nor in exact wording. To correct this mistake on her part I will quote directly the last lines of Mayer’s chapter as it appears in print:
They [the Rothko family] seemed to have everything, I remember thinking at the time. Having a baby late in life seemed so romantic, so ultimately domestic and cozy. So it could happen. Artists could make others happy without making themselves miserable. And vice versa. Such a thing was possible. But then, seven years later, Mark Rothko killed himself [italics mine] and I decided I didn’t understand any of it after all.
Suffice it to say that the remainder of Solomon’s piece is a similar mixture of wilful misreadings, unsubstantiated inferences regarding the author’s motives, fiction, and ranting. In retrospect, her fascination with the tools of destruction is not hard to fathom. Solomon’s vocation is not suicide but character assassination and her weapon of choice, the hatchet.
Robert Storr
Brooklyn, NY
Deborah Solomon replies:
Robert Storr accuses me of wielding a hatchet, yet it is he who is guilty of possession of a weapon. I’m afraid he has aimed an elephant gun at the proverbial molehill.
Storr charges me with willful inaccuracy, yet the only example he is able to cite is my supposed misquoting of Musa Mayer on the subject of Rothko’s death. When I quoted Mayer as saying “Rothko shot himself” I was quoting from bound galleys, which are customarily sent to reviewers before a book is ready. The statement was later changed to read: “Rothko killed himself” I’m glad Mayer—or one of her editors—caught the error in time to correct it for the finished book.