The Last Titan. A Life of Theodore Dreiser

that Dreiser had signed in 1923, the publisher was entitled to only 10 per-

cent of any movie rights.

On the day of the incident, Dreiser met with Liveright in his o‹ce to

sign the Kearney contract. It stipulated that Liveright got nothing more

than his 10 percent from the picture rights if the novel was sold for $30,000

or more before the play was produced.49 If the film deal went through af-

ter the beginning of the Broadway production, Liveright felt that he had a

right to a percentage of the sale higher than the contractual 10 percent be-

cause the play of which he was the contractual “manager” would have led

to the movie contract. The figure of $30,000 reflected Liveright’s earlier es-

timate of the most he had thought Hollywood would pay for the novel be-

fore Martin’s article appeared. Dreiser may have believed that he was being

set up by Liveright. Always suspicious of publishers since his dealings with

Doubleday in 1900 and never fully trusting of Liveright because he moved

in such fast company, producing plays and mingling with movie moguls,

he may have concluded that his publisher-agent was conspiring with Lasky

to keep the price artificially low so that Liveright could take a commission

under the table.

During their meeting that morning, Liveright admitted that Lasky was

now interested in buying the novel and asked Dreiser how much he wanted

for it. The reply was $100,000. Liveright, now upping his estimate, thought

$60,000 a more reasonable asking price. But he also suggested that Dreiser

join him to meet with Lasky for lunch, which he would arrange that very

afternoon at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Lasky in his memoir suggests that Liv-

eright planned all along to bring Dreiser to what was a prearranged date,

even though he appeared to invite him at the last minute. On the way to

the hotel just around the corner from Liveright’s o‹ce, after a few drinks

together in the o‹ce, Liveright asked Dreiser if he would “take care” of

him in the sale. “You were sure I would,” Dreiser told his publisher in a

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3 2 1

tongue-lashing letter a week later. “But just how you did not say. And only

when I finally inquired what you meant by ‘take care of you,’ you announced

that I should take 70 percent of whatever was paid and you 30.” At the time

Dreiser only smiled, he remembered. When Liveright asked the question

a second time, Dreiser recalled, “I merely replied that I would do so,” mean-

ing the 10 percent in the original book contract.

The best account of this matter is contained in Dreiser’s letter, which

Liveright did not challenge in his subsequent responses except to say that

it had all been one big misunderstanding. “I may have had too much to

drink—you may have had too much to drink,” he wrote in his own de-

fense. “I don’t know . . . , but at any rate my memory is that you told me

all over $60,000 was mine. When I asked $100,000, $70,000 for you and

$30,000 for me, I thought you were pleased; at least you made no com-

ments to the contrary.” The actual conversation leading up to the coªee in-

cident is obscured by conflicting accounts. Apparently, when Lasky asked

how much Dreiser wanted, Liveright excused himself so that Dreiser might

speak with Lasky “unconstrainedly.” When a contract had been tentatively

agreed upon at $90,000 and Liveright returned to the table, he asked for

everything over $60,000, claiming that Dreiser had agreed to such a split.

At this point Dreiser, already beginning to fume, said, “You will get your

ten percent.” Liveright reminded Dreiser that he had promised to “take care”

of him, at which Dreiser countered he had intended only 10 percent. Then

Liveright called his leading author a liar, and Dreiser soaked him with coªee.

Dreiser left immediately, but in a few days the contract was signed, and

Liveright got slightly more than his 10 percent: $80,000 was to be paid di-

rectly to Dreiser and $10,000 to Liveright.50

As this incident must have suggested, Dreiser now found himself rich

but also painfully vulnerable. It may not have been a coincidence that Rome,

already dead and buried in A Hoosier Holiday, resurfaced in need of a hand-

out that year. He had been living in a low-budget residential hotel in Chicago

“a long time,” the manager told Louise Campbell, who was serving as

Dreiser’s secretary, “and would be very glad to hear from his brother.” Now

Rome, along with Mame and no doubt Emma, was on the Theodore Dreiser

family dole. Worse yet for the man who never shed his poverty complex,

Jug—as if she were Roberta risen from the grave—reapplied for assistance.

“Dear Theo,” she wrote on March 31, “I have just heard of your wonder-

ful good fortune & congratulate you.” She wasn’t referring to the publica-

tion of the novel, which had happened almost six months previous, but to

the movie contract. Liveright had publicized the sales figure to further ad-

a n a m e r i c a n t r a g e d y

3 2 2

vertise the novel. Jug wrote a week later that she hadn’t had any “idea that

such an enormous sum had been paid you” and wondered whether he

“wouldn’t be willing to give me something, now that you are able to do so.”

Dreiser brooded on these letters for almost a month before venting his sus-

picions about her “purely financial interest in my career.” He had written

“eight or nine books” over the last twelve years, he told Jug, and hadn’t heard

one word of congratulations from her.51

This biting rebuke brought forth a response that Dreiser probably should

have burned to keep out of the hands of future biographers, but there is

no evidence that he ever purposely destroyed papers, as many writers and

other famous people invariably do. Jug, now fifty-seven, with sore feet and

varicose veins due, she said, “to my almost constant standing at my work,”

told him that she hadn’t known of these “8 or 9 books.” “I read nothing—

I have no time for reading. I know of 3 books only that you have written

during that time. Your trip to Indiana with—— Booth, which I have never

seen, Twelve Men, which I stood in the book Dept. in Wanamakers to run

hurriedly [through] the stories of Peter and Mr. Paul to see if you were able

to write of them as strongly as you felt & as you did of my father, & the

3rd was Hey Rub a dub dub. . . . I have not seen your last book except thro’

the window of a store here in the Village.”

What stung Jug more than Dreiser’s cynical response to her “congratu-

lations” was the outrageous notion that she might now value him as a great

writer simply because one of his books had finally made money. In his let-

ter he had noted all his books “seemed to me at least to be worthy of some

form of congratulation, however little the financial return.” “Your success

as far as fame goes,” she told him poignantly, “was just as great at the time

Jennie Gerhardt was published as it is today. . . . As for me you well know

it was just as great when Sister Carrie was written—not even published . . .

I suppose tho’ it is useless to try to defend myself. I only throw myself on

your mercy & ask you to please make life a little easier for me now that you

can do so without limiting yourself.” She desired to return to Missouri to

adopt her niece, the orphaned daughter of her late sister Rose. Jug reminded

him of her earlier contribution to his literary career, specifically the edit-

ing (or cutting ) of Jennie when they were together in Virginia in 1902, and

closed by asking him for “an answer one way or the other.”52

When he did not respond in May, Jug hired the law firm of House, Gross-

man, and Vorhaus. In the ensuing negotiations, Dreiser told his lawyer that

he felt he had already given her enough, supporting her in their marriage

until 1910 and then with alimony payments of $100 a month through 1915.

a n a m e r i c a n t r a g e d y

3 2 3

Additionally, he had given up their furniture when they separated, the two

lots on Grandview Avenue (now worth at least $2,000, he guessed), the

ten-acre apple orchard in Washington (for which he had paid $3,000 and

which was now worth $30,000, he supposed), and contributed $600 to her

trip to England in 1910 (where Jug, he failed to mention, was sent to look