An interesting article in the New York Times about the writer and performance artist Spalding Gray, whose widow read his journals after his death.
Gray, possibly the most celebrated neurotic of our time, kept private journals throughout his long career. Kathleen Russo, who is Gray’s widow and the mother of his children, read the journals after her husband’s death. Ms. Russo talks with Nell Casey about what it was like to explore her very public husband’s private thoughts.
What prompted you to read the journals?
There were a couple of long months when Spalding was missing, before they found his body. Â I missed him. I pulled the journals out, mostly because I wanted to hear his voice. The journals he kept in marble-covered composition books in the closet were a comfort.
What did you read first?
I looked for the journals in which he wrote about our happiest time together. I wanted to see how he documented our family life.
Was Spalding secretive about his journals?
Sometimes he left them out and open in the apartment, if you lived with him, it was your choice whether you wanted to read them or not. I think Spalding preferred someone discovering something about him through the journals to having to come clean in person.
Read more here.
What an interesting article. It seems to me that his journals encompass both sides of the debate over whether or not to destroy your journals. I have rules when I write to make it a non-issue, but I can see why people would have such varying feelings on the subject.