JOEL MYERSON
In early November 2021, Joel Myerson and I sat in a small restaurant just off of Main Street in Concord, Massachusetts enjoying lunch together as we completed a five-day research trip. Because of the pandemic, it had been over two years since I had seen Joel, and it was good to catch up. But most of our talk on that cold, sunny day was of the future. Both of us looked forward to a maskless world ahead. The following day we said farewell at Boston’s Logan Airport and planned to get together at the American Literature Association conference this coming May. “See you in Chicago!” Joel said as we headed off to catch our separate flights home. Those would prove to be his last words to me. Exactly two weeks later, Joel Myerson would die suddenly from a heart attack while eating lunch at his home on Edisto Island on the coast of South Carolina.
Now, as May nears, I find it difficult to imagine an ALA without Joel. We had attended the conference over twenty-five times, often rooming together. Joel had been my teacher, my mentor, my co-editor, but most of all my friend. For many professors and students of American literature, Joel Myerson remained a name—one they had seen on dust jackets and journal articles. Joel was, as most people know, a prolific scholar of 19th-century American literature, publishing over fifty books on such authors as Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman among others. For twenty years, he edited Studies in the American Renaissance. He was also a force in a number of author societies, serving, at some point, as president for most of them. Joel’s books grace the library shelves, and his articles can be retrieved from databases around the globe. But I do not want to speak of Joel’s scholarship. That work will endure. Instead, I wish to focus more on Joel as a person, a colleague, a friend.
Joel began attending ALA the same year as my initial conference appearance in spring 1990—thirty-two years ago now. He had not participated in its first small organizational gathering the previous year, but had expressed support for ALA’s concept and was also an original member of the executive board. During the 1990s, when ALA was held on the west coast every other year, alternating with the east coast, the organization would meet at the Bahia Hotel, a beautiful resort on a lush fourteen-acre peninsula on Mission Bay in San Diego. Invariably, Joel would always reserve a room with a balcony overlooking the bay.
Once we checked in to the hotel, the first thing Joel would do at ALA was throw open his suitcase and remove the three or four Hawaiian shirts he always brought. After donning one, he would carefully place the others in the chest of drawers, each one more colorful, more garish than the previous one; the remainder of the suitcase would take another day to unpack fully. But once the Hawaiian shirt was put on, ALA was in full swing for Joel. We were in California!
Along with his favored Hawaiian shirt, Joel loved the fact that ALA in San Diego was informal—much more than it is today. Of course, the Bahia Resort encouraged that relaxation. So, as soon the loud shirt was on, it was immediately followed with shorts and sandals. And Joel relished it. He often commented on how good it was to see scholars and professors leave behind the suits, the ties, the starched shirts and the leather shoes. By the midafternoon, the Bahia’s stone patio overlooking the bay would be filled with casually attired conference goers, sitting around tables, eating, drinking, conversing. Some would also just lie back in the lounge chairs soaking up the sunshine as their children splashed in the pool. The hot tub too would also be filled with scholars, their drinks perched precariously along the edge.
Joel always insisted that such informality made people more relaxed, more comfortable. That was all true. But he himself fostered community, especially at ALA. Joel loved people, and he loved socializing with his old friends and meeting new ones. Even before arriving at the conference, he would check out restaurant reviews, organize dinners, and make reservations (making sure no jacket or tie was required!). It was not unusual to have eight to ten people at those dinners, all engaged in lively banter. Joel was inclusive, and he loved seeing new faces, especially younger scholars, gathered around a table, enjoying the food and conversations.
Joel was generous, kind, and empathetic. One of the qualities that he always stressed was the idea that a scholar’s job, a professor’s job, was to “pass it on.” One should use the knowledge gained to help someone else; the words “scholarship” and “sharing” went hand in hand. He enjoyed helping others. Always carrying a notecard in his shirt pocket, Joel was constantly taking out his gold Cross pen and jotting notes at these events, reminders to check on a book for a friend or to send someone useful material for a project they were starting. These were not false promises. Back at the University of South Carolina, Joel would act on those notes. Many scholars, new ones and established ones, were often the recipients of Joel’s willingness to share—to pass it on.
Long, convivial meals would often be followed by after-dinner drinks in our room at the Bahia, and the balcony door would be thrown open to hear the lapping of water in Mission Bay. Joel’s friends and acquaintances were varied and many. Often, they entertained us with the progress of their most recent work. I vividly recall the late biographer Robert Richardson (who was fond of calling Joel the “Dean of the American Renaissance”) recounting tales of Ralph Waldo Emerson as he was completing his biography of the poet/philosopher—little vignettes that would not make it into the book.
When ALA began alternating with east coast dates in 1991, the first location chosen was Washington, DC. Gone were the hot sun, the cool breezes of the bay—not to mention shorts and sandals. And the Mayflower Hotel, where Joel and I stayed, was about as far from the Bahia Resort as one could imagine. As I walked through the beautiful, but formal, lobby upon my arrival, I noticed that the suits, sports coats and ties had returned. Joel would not be pleased. Heading towards our room, where Joel had already checked in, I felt the atmosphere had somehow changed. As my key (a real metal one) unlocked the door, a voice yelled out, “Hello!” Sitting in the corner reading, Joel immediately rose to greet me, emerging in a bright flash from behind an open newspaper–wearing the most colorful Hawaiian shirt I had ever seen!
The Hawaiian shirt became Joel’s visible protest. He had loved the relaxed atmosphere of ALA in southern California. Who could be pretentious in shorts and sandals? Seeing the world’s leading scholar of such-and-such an author in the hot tub–Joel would always insist–immediately broke down those walls of formality. However, the hot tubs never returned. When ALA returned to the west coast in 2000 and 2002, it was held in Long Beach, California, just outside of LA—a far cry from Mission Bay. For a few years, Baltimore followed Washington as the east coast site for ALA before Boston became the conference’s site, the Hyatt Regency at the Embarcadero in San Francisco its western locale. No matter the weather, Joel’s Hawaiian shirt never failed to appear (a hard feat at times in Boston during a chilly late May), especially at the opening and closing receptions. His little protest stayed with him over the years—a humorous attack at formality. He also loved that his friends took note of his brightly colored attire and began to expect it.
For Joel, ALA centered on friendship. He would always support his friends by attending their sessions, sometimes ducking in and out of rooms just to catch the last paper on a particular panel. Lunches proved a time to catch up with old buddies or new acquaintances, whether it was fried clams at Legal Seafood in Boston or sand dabs at Tadich’s Grill in San Francisco. These get-togethers provided opportunities to advise his colleagues on what press would be interested in a particular manuscript or what chair position was coming open next year. Joel constantly offered his experience and expertise to his colleagues, and he wrote hundreds of letters of recommendation for grants, fellowships, and faculty positions, many stemming from conversations initiated at the conference. ALA was a time for socializing with friends for Joel, but it was also serious business as it provided contacts and the opportunity to network.
ALA also meant a chance for Joel to look for books—always an ongoing search. As most people know, Joel Myerson loved collecting books. Nothing set his mind afire like the purchase of a rare book, and during his lifetime, he put together incredible collections of Emerson, Dickinson, and Whitman—books that now make up the backbone of the Joel Myerson Collection of Nineteenth-Century American Literature at the University of South Carolina. Often, I would go “booking” with Joel, as he called it, in San Diego, Baltimore, San Francisco and Boston, visiting rare or used book stores in search of a sought-after volume that would bring a grin to his face.
This past November, when Joel and I were in Concord, I saw that look of delight come over his face once again when he discovered an 1881 first edition of The Duties of Women by Frances Powers Cobbe, a leading social reformer and woman’s suffrage campaigner in Great Britain. The book, Joel thought, would make a perfect addition to his Margaret Fuller collection. Of course, what made Cobbe’s book more special was the inscription on the front wrapper. Scrawled across the top, in the unmistakable handwriting of Louisa May Alcott, was the following: “Mrs. Blanchard with Miss Alcott’s regards. Please read & lend.” In other words, pass it on.
As spring approaches and the pandemic appears on the wane, my thoughts again turn to ALA. But this year’s conference will seem strange without Joel’s presence. Since the Association’s formation over thirty years ago, he had missed only a few times. This May, when I’m boarding my plane for ALA, I’ll remember Joel’s last words to me: “See you in Chicago!” And I’ll always recall his insistence that a scholar’s duty is to pass it on. While other people may be focusing on panels and papers, I will remember Joel’s decision to focus on friends—old ones and new ones. And I will keep my eyes on the lookout, ever watchful for a colorful Hawaiian shirt.
Daniel Shealy
University of North Carolina-Charlotte