Familiar Spirits by Alison Lurie

I didn't know who the subjects of this memoir were—David Jackson and James Merrill—nor the author, Alison Lurie. It was a little like being a guest at a dinner party: nice to meet everyone, hear some old stories, but I don't know anyone and will never see them again.

James Merrill was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose father was a founder of Merrill Lynch. Witty and elegant, he had enough money to devote his time to writing and travel, living all over the world. David Jackson was his partner for over 40 years. More rough and tumble, handier with dealing with 'real life' issues, he was also a writer. They did a lot of entertaining, mingling with the art crowd, including Truman Capote, Peggy Guggenheim, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of this biography, Alison Lurie.

Familiar Spirits is a memoir of their life together, especially their interest in spirits. From 1955 until 1982, James and David practiced contacting spirits through a Ouija board and writing down the messages. James was the 'scribe' who took the notes, and David was the 'hand' through whom the spirits spoke. They had the idea to follow the poets Blake and Dante and compose a long, serious poem dealing with philosophical issues. They contacted a spirit guide named Ephraim who, among others, dictated the information, which James then edited into the final product "The Book Of Ephraim" in 1976, followed by the sequels "Mirabell" (1978) and "Scripts For The Pageant" (1980) — all compiled later under the title "The Changing Light At Sandover" in 1982.

The writing and observations were well-received, but their relationship went through many changes. They each had outside lovers during the relationship, and by the end of the poem, the relationship was mostly over.

And there is the question of who wrote the work, how much influence was the hand of the scribe in directing the answers or editing the text. If David was the vessel, did the writing come from his subconscious, and when James was editing, how much of it was his revision? In the end, only James' name appeared on the book.

Well-written and interesting to view their lives through a close friend. Although they lead separate lives in the end, I found it most interesting how they maintained same-sex partnerships for four decades at a time when that wasn't open or common.

2001 / Paperback / 192 pages