He doesn’t remember me, but I know who he is. The biographer and I met at a party, about a year after I arrived in New York. Nathaniel took me to a literary fundraiser in one of those apartments where the elevator opens directly into the living room. “Wilhelmina, this nice man wants to write about me,” said Nathaniel. “Your job tonight is to convince him of a better idea.”
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A tray of miniature hamburgers came floating by, and the biographer grabbed one and ate it while looking at my feet. He was clearly middle-aged, his sad face and moist-looking skin indicating an indoor life. As Nathaniel walked through the crowd greeting people, he followed us from the bar to the bookshelves and back again. As I remember, Nathaniel was kind, but distracted, and probably irritated by how I hovered at his elbow, laughing for a long time at every joke. I was so new to the scene that I couldn’t talk to anyone without addressing me first. Who else will do it? I was twenty-four years old, clearly younger than every other guest. For several months, I wanted Nathaniel to bring me to one of his commitments, as he called them – but when I got there, I found it fruitless and scary. All those long-haired women with their stylish glasses, men, like biographers, looking at me in that stealthy, knowing way, as if I were something – a dollar bill, or a pen – that Nathaniel might leave for them to pick up.
“I’m going to do it, you know,” said the biographer, taking another small hamburger. “Write that book.” On the mantel above the fireplace – A fireplace, in a penthouse! – The host smiled at a photo bookend by Bill and Hillary Clinton.
“The definitive biography! Get in line,” I said, taking a sip of my wine. I’d never heard anything about a biography from anyone, but increasing Nathaniel’s importance in my vague job description seemed like an important task, along with keeping his sock drawer organized and always available for a day trip to the movie theater.
The biographer said, “To think he wanted to be an actor.” “Can you imagine?” Nathaniel was already a few steps away, revealing and disappearing behind the ear of an elderly woman with a quarter he kept in his suit pocket for this purpose.
“Nathaniel as an actor?” I had said. “of course I can.” “I mean a world where he never wrote his own books.”
In those early days I might have been disarmed by the demonstrative admiration of Nathaniel’s readers. They were contributing to a different conversation, a secret conversation about influence and loyalty and status that underpinned what was happening on the surface. I hadn’t learned to listen to it yet. “No, I can’t,” I agreed. And wasn’t that true? Nathaniel’s books created this world for me. Those were the doors, and now I was inside.
At the time of the party, the biographer had not yet written a single biography. I had written many poems, but nothing Nathaniel liked yet. Nathaniel wrote six poetry collections, two screenplays, four literary novels, one essay collection. A book of food writing; A pocket-sized collection of aphoristic wisdom about the weather that sold better than all the poetry books combined. a best-selling memoir that was made into a movie; A gritty, out-of-character romance that was adapted into an even more famous film.
Lily had not yet written the article that would change all our lives.
I also took a hamburger and ate it while looking into the biographer’s eyes. A piece of bread fell straight from my mouth. The biographer watched it fall and then stepped on it, as if hiding his bad behavior from both of us. In Nathaniel’s setting, I was mostly quiet and friendly. But sometimes the desire to be unpleasant would overcome me. I didn’t know how to explain these urges to myself – or to Nathaniel, when he noticed – and they were always followed by a burst of euphoric, almost pleasurable embarrassment. After finishing the burger, I wiped my fingers on my thigh, blushing.
The biographer got to talking about his apartment in Williamsburg, a neighborhood that is fading into oblivion. In five, six years, he said, living on Graham Avenue will be like living in a juice bar. 2017 seemed as far away as Michigan to me. When he asked, I said I was living in Manhattan, and then I changed the subject. I was staying in Nathaniel’s spare room. I was Nathaniel’s extra girl. Helpfully, I told him in response to the biographer’s precisely executed question about my relationship with Nathaniel. Literary Assistant.
The sun had set. The view of the city from the windows was like a future starry night, galactic and buzzing. Near the bar, Nathaniel gave me the signal to let’s split up, which we planned to walk to – a finger gun raised to his head. But then a woman wearing a long dress grabbed his arm and he turned towards her, and took the drink she offered. I tried not to look disappointed.
The biographer said, “Stop touching your hair.” We were stuck together the whole evening, two shy losers.
“What?”
“When you talk, you touch your hair again and again.” She made a feminine pounce; It took a long time to recognize that it was me he was showing. “It makes you seem insecure.” He moved forward and stopped my hand. I was shocked to find that he was right – his hand and mine were now in my hair, almost holding my face. There was something strange in this intimacy and I laughed without meaning to, but when the biographer did not join in, I stopped, a little frightened. He slowly brought my hand down, as if I couldn’t be trusted to do this. When my hand was safely beside me, she wrapped her fingers around my wrist, measured its circumference, and then squeezed my hand.
“That’s the thing,” he said. “relax.” I tried not to move my hand. Adjusting my hair would prove to be an issue, but I couldn’t guarantee that he would interpret this action as rebellion rather than more uncharacteristic female foolishness. So I pretended I had no hands, no hands at all. When my hair got in my face, I blew it out, wishing I was a different kind of woman.
Oh, the relief when Nathaniel appeared at the biographer’s with my purse. The thing about living in New York City was that no matter how bad things got, when you left, you were still in New York City. Down the street, I jumped, I was so happy, and it made Nathaniel laugh. “Don’t ever take me to another party again,” I said, and we shook it off.
“Should we run back?” he asked. I didn’t think he was serious, but he took off his jacket waving among the group of people on the sidewalk. They cursed him, jumped aside, and looked with surprise at the gray-haired man who was galloping by in his dress shoes. Within a minute she attacked me, but then – I was just so drunk – I kicked off my kitten heels as I ran and caught them in one hand. The city beneath my feet had the warmth of an animal, the force of breathing, glass and bottle caps and still-burning cigarettes. I grabbed Nathaniel by the coat and that’s when he slowed down. I was sweating; He was not. We found dollar pieces from Nathaniel’s apartment, licking the oil from our fingers as we made fun of the way the biographer had clung to my side, afraid to stand alone in that room. “I can only imagine the questions he would ask,” Nathaniel said. “How was your mother?” He started on his crust. My ankles were bleeding, but I couldn’t feel it yet. I loved her very much.
Now, the first line of the biographer’s email: I No Thinking We meet.
Outside the window of my makeshift office, everything is gray – gray leaves, gray sky, gray sidewalks, students walking in pairs and trios toward the cafeteria, which is gray on the horizon. It’s been five years since that fateful party; Nathaniel is due to arrive in Rosendale in a few days, I couldn’t get him to cancel because of a reading. I forenoon write an authorized biography of Nathaniel Fellows, The biographer writes. Authorized! Was it possible that Nathaniel had agreed? As soon as this thought comes, I start feeling anxious and I try to ignore it. Not my problem now. I Was Told you knew him well, The biographer writes. would you be? open briefly Interview?
He may just be being polite, but the email contains harsh words, which is a modification of the form. This happens to me often. I was a pretty girl in a town full of pretty girls. It’s easy to forget.
*
If you want to write fiction, Nathaniel said, start with as many factual details as possible. His women were mostly based on women he knew. His men were mostly based on him. He said, his version. Someone can throw his voice. The job of the writer, first and foremost, is to make what is lying seem true. We were on a blanket in Sheep Meadow when she said this to me, finding shapes in the clouds, a game I had never played, not even as a child. And then, once the thing is written down, change it so much that the person you stole from cannot recognize themselves. Elephant, he said. Mackinac Bridge! The clouds started floating in new shapes. A strawberry burst in my mouth.
The biographer probably wouldn’t think of asking me about Nathaniel as a teacher—he would ask his verifiable former students, if he could get any of them to answer.
Another of Nathaniel’s rules: If you need the past to tell a story, you’re telling the wrong story. When I started writing novels, he returned all my stories by cutting out the first three or four pages. I learned that he did this with most of his students. He would first turn a few pages, find something interesting, and then write: Start Here. Almost always, improvements were made in the second draft.
I know where he’ll start our story. His office, late August, New York City. A woman is opening the door. I have read such scenes many times; When he called me to come in, looked up from his desk, it was not him I saw, not at all, but he was Me. That moment, as I lived it, flashed before my eyes: the girl with her long hair, applying lipstick to look older, her bare feet shining with lotion. A heavy bag of books, the excuse for this meeting, slips from her shoulder, dragging with it the strap of her cheap dress.
I’ll start our story much earlier than his, and with a fact.
Nathaniel didn’t know I existed until I taught him my name.
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From famous men By Julie Buntin. Copyright © 2026 by Julie Buntin. Published by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
